Weekend Unthreaded

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164 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    The after-match activities from the latest COP seems to be a lot quieter than previous years. I find that interesting.

    At the previous events, delegates departed with hopes high for changing the world, and a pocket full of ideas on how to go about it. All marched to the same beat. And they all gathered their local supporters, and launched into the attack as soon as they got home.

    This time around, is different to my way of thinking. I sense more insecurity, and less action of purpose.

    Of course it is early days, and the battle plans and press release scripts, may well be in the mail, and not hand carried as in previous times.

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    • #
      Robert O

      I agree, but a lot of weather events in the UK and USA to talk about

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      • #
        The Backslider

        Don’t forget “The Big Melt” in the Arctic…..

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          PeterPetrum

          No wonder my youngest grandchild didn’t get so much from Santa this year – Dancer et al could not get up to take-off speed in the slush!

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            James Murphy

            You should apologise to your grandchild for me, as I am one of those lucky people who hasn’t yet been fired from the oil industry (though I imagine it will happen soon enough), so, as such, I am an evil fossil fuel sympathiser, going out of my way to actively promote wars, poverty, death, and environmental rape.

            Despite being much more widely travelled, better educated with respect to science and engineering, and with a more egalitarian approach to society than the average environmental activist, I think the earth is flat, and am paid a fortune to promote climate denial, and think all “poor” people should stay poor so I can stay “rich”.

            On weekends I limit my actions to taking candy from babies, with an appropriately evil laugh.

            Sorry again for ruining Christmas, I should have thought of the children, and the grand children.

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        John F. Hultquist

        In the USA it is like the person with 1 foot in ice water and the other in hot water. On average, the person is just fine.
        We are freezing our butts off in the Northwest, others are warm, still others are flooded out and on and on. Well, it is a big wide country.
        The big party in Paris, as Rereke notes, seems to have gone unnoticed in my area.

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    • #
      el gordo

      The warmist rank and file have been informed that they won in Paris, so no further discussion is needed. They are now moving the debate away from temperature to extreme weather, which they hope will have a bigger impact.

      The problem for them is that two can play that game, no matter what weather is thrown at me I claim it as the beginning of global cooling. At first they laugh ….

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        Peter C

        The problem for them is that two can play that game, no matter what weather is thrown at me I claim it as the beginning of global cooling. At first they laugh ….

        Thanks elgordo,
        That should keep me going though most of the coming year. And it is probably quite true with respect to extreme weather.

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      • #
        Hivemind

        which they hope will have a bigger impact.

        Does that mean bigger grants?

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      • #
        ROM

        Perhaps el gordo you are much closer to the reality than most would think when you use “extreme weather” as an indicator of a cooling globe when trying to get some semblence of sanity about the climate into the global warming sifile ehamba

        The period from around the latter part of the 12th century through the 13th century and into the first third of the 14th century, a period of time that is now becoming accepted as somewhere around the beginning of the LIA, there are a large number of writings in Britain and from the Continent from this period that point to a large increase in severe and extreme weather events.

        After reading some of this information from the BOOTY site over the last decade or so I really do count my blessings that I was born when the world had the ability to transport enormous tonnages of food from one part of the world to another part that desperately needed it to stave off famine .
        And a world climate that compared to the [ British and North Sea ] climate of 800 and 900 years ago was like, we really do live in a time of an extraordinarly placid climatic optimum.

        From Wiki, some dates.

        any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age:

        1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow
        1275 to 1300 based on radiocarbon dating of plants killed by glaciation
        1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
        1315 for the rains and Great Famine of 1315–1317
        1550 for theorized beginning of worldwide glacial expansion
        1650 for the first climatic minimum.
        The Little Ice Age ended in the latter half of the nineteenth century or early in the twentieth century.

        From the UK’s Booty Meteorological Information Source

        [ Tony B , a very respected UK blogger whose specialty is researching the UK’s historical climate has told me that the following BOOTY meteorological source may not be particularly accurate as the various historical documents and history research articles that are the prime source of the BOOTY meteorological information may not have been confirmed as the prime original sources.
        Thats a true historian’s perspective but information that comes from very close to the prime source is about the best that we lay persons can expect!]

        The period as described in the BOOTY site from the mid 12th century though the 13th century and into the first third of the 14th century was incredibly variable and extreme in storminess, cold, heat, rainfall and drought and the consequent severe famine and disease.

        So for a read of what a cooling climate, the very thing the worst of the imbecilic global warming alarmists seem to be desperately hoping will occur,[ ignorance and a mastery of arrant nonsense is surely a major characteristic of the most hard line climate alarmists,] can be found in the Booty site here;

        1100 > 1199;
        1200 > 1299
        1300 > 1399

        Sample;
        ———
        1201
        & 1202 Two consecutive ‘wet’ years (but see end this entry). In 1201 specifically, the summer is thought to have experienced severe thunderstorms, notable hail in the London area – mid/late June (some sources have June 25th(OSP)).
        In contrast to the foregoing, some sources have 1201 experiencing a notable “heat & drought” episode, but with no location details: harvest over on June 24th(OSP) in 1201 (where?); drought continued through July & August. 8,
        LWH
        ———–
        1203
        (annual) A year of heavy rains in London. (Year not certain – might be one of the previous years, q.v.) 8
        ————
        1204/05
        (Winter) This winter was one of the severe winters of history and most rivers including the Thames were frozen completely; the frost prevented ploughing and all agricultural work was suspended from 14th January to 22nd March, the winter seed was destroyed and there was widespread famine.
        ————–
        1269/70
        (Winter) A bitter frost persisted for about 10 weeks during this severe winter; the Thames froze solid (thick enough for ‘men & beasts’ to cross over) and was closed to shipping, so that merchandise had to be transported overland between the Channel ports and London. Accounts of this winter included reference to glazed frost; the thaw, when it arrived, was accompanied by heavy rain and flooding. A flood on the Thames noted in February – presumably a combination of heavy rain / inland snow-melt etc., after the events referred to above.
        ——-
        1286
        (March
        / OSP In March 1286 the combination of high tides and strong easterly winds caused ‘great devastation’. In particular a strip of land down the eastern side of Dunwich, in places a hundred metres wide, was eroded by the sea. Residential areas, churches, and a small monastery were carried away. The priory of Grey Friars was almost totally demolished, only the graveyard and the west wall of its chapel remaining in existence. Massive waves swept across Kings Holme and flooded the lower town. The harbour mouth seems to have stayed open, but further north the River Blyth again forced a way through Kings Holme at or near the point where the previous opening had been.
        [ This may have been the same STORM that was involved in the death of King Alexander III of Scotland. ] x
        ————
        1286
        (May) 9th May, 1286 (corrected to new-style calendar) .. thunderstorm with large hail (‘as big as stones’?). Crops levelled, houses damaged, branches of trees broken etc. Squally winds (and a possible tornado, but not certain – though the mention of the large hail tends to support mechanics available for such.) (JMet/TORRO)
        ——–
        1287
        (Spring &
        Summer) Dry from April to July.
        [www.tree-ring.co.uk/Timeline.htm] x
        ———–
        1287 A ‘terrible’ inundation in the East Anglia (particularly Norfolk) coastal areas in December 1287 (14th or 17th OSP/confusion with dates), probably due to a storm surge. Houses destroyed, and in the village of Hickling the water was so deep that it overflowed the high altar of the priory by a foot or more. Some 500 people perished in this most fatal of all British floods.
        [ The year 1287 is noted by Lamb [Ref. 23] as being one with ‘many storm floods’ along the East Anglian, Kent and Sussex (and adjacent continental) coastlines. ]
        ———–
        First third 14th century (Winters) [ Researchers suggest that the frequency of ‘severe’ winters across Britain during the first three decades of this century was unusually high. Also, analysis of agricultural records, estate reports, tax returns etc., also points to frequent wet / cool summers with failures of harvests and impact on survival of livestock. Probably by extension applies at least to continental NW Europe. See individual entries below … not exhaustive!]
        ————-
        1302/1303
        (Winter) A cold winter in western Europe / implied for parts of Britain. (Easton, in CHMW/Lamb)
        ———–
        1305 A hot, dry summer (London/South). Modern researchers think that the summers of the first decade of the 14th Century were often dry or very dry & probably often warm as a result; as often happens though, this ‘fine’ mini-era followed a spell in the mid-1290s when summers were less than ideal with possibly one or two chillier such-named seasons. [See: ‘Weather’, May 2014, Pribyl]
        ———–
        1305/06
        (Winter) Severe winter (London/South). A severe winter over much of western Europe. (Easton, in CHMW/Lamb): taking these two last entries together suggests a high frequency of blocked / anticyclonic episodes.
        ———–
        1309/10 London Bridge arches damaged by ice during a severe winter. Thames frozen. A possible frost-fair on the Thames in London; which implies a persistent length of sub-zero temperatures at some time this winter (inferred by the statement in some chronicles that ‘sport’ was held on the river). Usual stories about people walking across the Thames. According to contemporary reports ” dancing took place around a fire built on the ice and a hare was coursed (chased) on the frozen waterway “.
        ————
        1314-1316 Several famines occurred during these years (weather assumed to have been responsible, with all three years noted by various historians as ‘very wet’ … it’s a moot point though as to whether all three were really wet, or just the effects of one or two carrying over). Brazell says that the famine of 1316 was probably the last really severe one in England, and historians have estimated that over this period, approximately half-a-million people died (roughly 10% of the population) of causes related to famine, which represented approximately 10% of the population. [ The wet year credited to 1315 may be the origin of the St. Swithin legend. ]
        The ‘Black Death’ (Bubonic plague) that ravaged the country 1348 onwards may have some linkage to these precursor conditions – though it is a long time afterwards. Certainly though, in the mid-1300’s, mortality was high due to famine, disease etc.
        It is suggested that it was an increase in climatic variability, rather than the absolute temperature & rainfall regimes that caused the problems. There is some suggestion of an increase in extreme events (including wind-storms), however defined. Some evidence that as well as excessively damp conditions, temperatures were depressed.
        [Additional references: Lucas, 1930: “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316 and 1317”; Kershaw, 1973: “The great famine and agrarian crisis in England, 1315-1322” and others ]

        >>>>>>>>>

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    • #
      Manfred

      This time around, is different to my way of thinking. I sense more insecurity, and less action of purpose.

      Mon Dieu, I sincerely hope so RW, but fear not. I far prefer a noisy enemy.

      Possibly it appears more tranquil at present because the sustained eco-hysteria prior to COP21 has simply abated toward the mean, and a more usual tenor to which we are both immune and accustomed. On the other hand, the pre-COP21 orchestration must have taken considerable funds and relentless organisation. The Christmas / New Year holiday period provides them with a recuperative pause. In spite of recurrent thoughts to the contrary, eco-marxist climatists nevertheless remain human. (There is no implication here, merely empirical observation!).

      The MSM daily News is however another story. The news appears to have morphed into a battering UN global weather / environmental / health lecture. It is predictable, tedious, monochromatic, one-sided propaganda with the grubby Green hands of ‘UN Civil Society‘ all over it. By contrast, the weather forecast itself appears a brief interlude of relaxed entrail gazing sanity.

      So, I forecast that 2016 will see the UN Bureaucratic Eco-machine attempt to extend its tangible reach now that it apparently has a political mandate, such that even the Sheeple begin to detect something amiss in the firmament. From a failure to dredge in the UK in Somerset and Cumbria, to a failure to practice effective fire prevention in Australia, the destructive eco-policies of the climatism fascista becomes increasingly apparent. They do indeed visibly betray themselves at every turn, demonstrating the economic and human unsustainability of their intellectually and environmentally bankrupt ideology.

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      • #

        “Thanks” to the Internet, I can now get to see the propaganda fed to German TV sets, first-hand.

        When Germany was “re-unified” (a process far from complete), it left the former border strip through the country. It was at the time decided to turn that strip largely into national parks. One region, the Harz Mountains had been a no-go area for the majority of East Germans anyway, but the newly established park is now vaunted as returning to “Urwald” — primeval forest — with the cessation of forestry and most other human activity in the park; except for some tourism.

        They showed some footage that I found disturbing; fallen trees and deep forest floor litter decomposing. Methinks a couple of years of drought plus a bit of lightning and the park will be scorched earth once the fires exhaust the fuel; because firefighting is out of the question given the terrain. While the fires are burning and peat smoulders; towns an cities surrounding and surrounded by the park will be choking on real smog.

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        • #
          Ted O'Brien

          It will survive. Locally here the time frame could be 100 to 1,000 years, there it may be different. But it will survive, even if the people don’t.

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          • #

            One of the “unknowns” is that most forests in Germany are artificial; man-made. Dominant; if not mono-culture is evident. it’s a bit of a joke when all the trees in a “primeval forest” line up neatly. Consequences of active forestry. But the Germans, sadly, prefer to live by illusion and delusion.

            Just about all the natural forests were exhausted in the 17th and 18th century; before coal. Others were flattened by two world wars. Only the most-inaccessible spots and the protected hunting grounds of the barons, counts and princes survived “untouched”.

            A lack of species diversity; flora and fauna; produces unstable systems in nature. A quasi-stable “forest’ will eventually establish; perhaps even before the next glaciation. It will take human life-times to “see” the return to primeval forest; not just decades as the propagandists would life to make us believe.

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      • #
        tom0mason

        “They do indeed visibly betray themselves at every turn, demonstrating the economic and human unsustainability of their intellectually and environmentally bankrupt ideology.”

        Yes but Manfred these are the same people who will argue that OPM (other people’s money) must bankroll the unsustainability of their vacuous and bankrupt ideology. able”
        Hopefully this is the year when the public wise up!


        “Sustainability only truly exists in simple systems where all parametric variations are known, limited, and predictable”

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    • #
      Dennis

      There was an article with link posted here that the UN IPCC Paris agenda was not a binding agreement to be signed because the US Federal Government system would not permit enforcement there so the preferred outcome was achieved and left it open to the POTUS to continue his manipulation of the system.

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    • #
      farmerbraun

      It depends where you go. I have made several efforts to spread the glad tidings at Hot Topic,but the filthy mood of the blogmeister there has led to a situation where even quotes from the IPCC will be censored.
      This tells me that the most rabid warmists are now in terminal denial.
      Even the “spectre of catastrophic drought”, which was , as a result of El Niño, supposed to be punishing the wretched sceptics, has evaporated as a depression of tropical origin has brought significant rain over much of Godzone, AND during a HOLIDAY period.
      Talk about weeping and gnashing of teeth : it is truly a joy to behold 🙂

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Andrew,

        Thanks for the pointer, but I can’t resolve the web address. It wants a secure connection that my browser doesn’t know how to handle.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          That’s weird. Maybe there is a problem with the VPN or anonymising proxy you use?

          Anyhow it worked for me. I’m using a version of Firefox after v40, but it is certainly not the latest.
          The negotiated cipher suite I got was: TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256.
          So all you have to do is negotiate the session key with elliptic curve math Diffie-Hellman, use the agreed key for a 128-bit AES symmetric cipher in Galois/Counter mode, and verify server certificates with SHA256. Easy as! 🙂

          Try it from a different browser and network location, like… erm.. do Internet cafes still exist?

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    • #

      Rereke
      I agree with you that COP21 Paris was a lot quieter than previous meetings. It was also quiet compared to the massive build-up. The whole purpose of the COP meetings is to obtain an agreement that will reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The UNFCCC knew from all the country submissions that they were no where near stopping total GHG emissions from rising, let alone reducing emissions to less to a fraction of current levels by the end of the century. So they mislead the public, then got the PR people to obscure the failure. The story of how they achieved this is related
      here.

      Easier to understand is a claim by Climate Interactive (and used by Joe Romm of Climate Progress) that the policy proposals would mean that global emission in 2100 would be 40% lower than without them. This had a flawed forecast comprising three elements.
      – OECD countries, where emissions had stopped rising decades ago, were forecast to have emissions rising. Implication – if those countries state they will stop emissions rising, it will make a big difference.
      – Russia and China are forecast to see emissions rising for decades to come. Implication – if those countries state they will stop emissions rising, it will make a big difference.
      – India and African countries are forecast to have very little emissions growth, when in reality they will. Implication – the lack of policies make a much smaller difference in the bogus forecast than a more objective one.
      The details are here.

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  • #
    Robert O

    When proposals for green energy are announced, such as the AGL Solar farm at Nyngan NSW, ( 102 MW, projected as producing 233,000 MWh annually and provide enough power for 33,000 houses annually), why are the projected figures (26% capacity) well above the industry standard of 16%, and why do the subsidising governments support these projections without any due diligence?

    Are these projects different from other major infrastructure projects or defence spending?

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Robert O:

      TonyFromOz has recently pointed this exaggeration out as applying to both wind and solar. For once the number of houses is not exaggerated except from the claimed annual output.
      The Capacity factor used for Wind is 38%, and I don’t believe any wind farm in Australia achieves that. The same over estimating for solar as you point out. Perhaps the answer is to monitor the output and charge the operators for the undersupply (at the same rate as they are getting for output). We could call it RRS – rolling reserve supply.

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      • #
        Dennis

        I don’t believe that either the present federal government or the previous one were interested in performance of assets only in creating the impression of a renewable energy target with no regard for cost-benefit analysis and technical realities. It is all about the international politics and associated wealth creation for those involved, and at our expense as consumers and taxpayers.

        I first learnt about the new world order agenda when ABC Radio National broadcast a series on New World Order in the 1970s. I purchased the transcript which I still have in my possession. But when I attempted to discuss NWO with politicians of the conservative side my inquiries were met with comments suggesting that NWO was an urban myth, over the top ratbag nonsense. That the UN was an important organisation run by wise people who only have the interests of humanity at heart. Well I now know that is all nonsense. In fact the UN when being established was advised by a former Australian Attorney General (Labor) Evatt to embark on a programme of treaties to be signed by all member nations covering as many subjects as possible that could be used to get around sovereign laws. In other words, a cooperating government could ignore the will of the people including handing control over to a One World Government.

        You will no doubt remember that the Tasmanian State Government locked up State Forests as National Parks. The State Forests were created to provide sustainable logging for the timber industry. Denying them access to timber is another step in breaking down the economy, collapsing capitalism as we know it and replacing it with a China-style Communist managed and controlled capitalism conducted by selected loyal comrades. Imagine a modern industrial age world where the wealthy control the workers and deny them unions and industrial law awards. I can think of many other advantages for the wealth creators in a managed and controlled by government system of capitalism.

        Therefore RET is another weapon. The governments do not care about cost effectiveness, reliability of electricity supplies, cost of living or business damage caused by uncompetitive electricity prices.

        Remember the October 2015 admission by UN senior executive Christiana Figureres that man-made global warming climate change is not about the environment, it’s all about socialism and collapsing the capitalist world of nations.

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        • #
          Dennis

          Also please remember what PM Tony Abbott said: I will not stand for socialism masquerading as environmentalism.

          I think that many voters completely missed his point.

          Right now as a conservative voter all my voting life I will not, I cannot vote for the major parties. I fear the Union controlled and financed Labor and Greens returning to government because they are greatly influenced by the far-left of politics including the international socialists. However, the Liberals and Nationals, a majority of Liberal MPs voted for the new PM to replace Tony Abbott, are willing participants in the NWO agendas. If they were true liberal conservatives of the Menzies mould they would be speaking out to voters and rejecting RET, ETS and all the other socialist weapons.

          So why would even left leaning Liberals go along with this? No doubt the former Chairman of Goldman Sachs could explain it. And his comrades like the late Maurice Strong said to be the chief engineer of the global warming fraud. Obviously Al Gore could explain it as a major player on the wealth creation side. Even Clive Palmer and John Hewson too. But many others.

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          • #
            TdeF

            A majority of Liberal MPs? No, the win was only 5 votes. That means only 3 changed sides. What was done can be undone as easily.

            Malcolm has dealt savagely with everyone who voted against him, dumping the PM and ministers to the back bench. Others have resigned.

            Does Malcolm care if he wins the next election? Possibly not. The assassination of the elected PM by the ABC media giant was obvious and his insider’s track as Minister for Communications was exactly what he wanted. The ABC would be illegally operated if it was private enterprise and politicians are scared of the power. Malcolm had to move before the Canning poll showed Abbott was as popular as ever. Malcolm has worked to undo all the things Abbott did, expunging his achievements from the books and rewarding his ABC. The only two things left are the removal of the Carbon Tax and turning the boats around. Malcolm will reverse both if he can.

            Bring back our elected PM. This political assassination will not stand. It is why the ABC are desperate to drive Abbott from parliament. They fear his return. As they should. Sell the ABC/SBS. We do not need a totally biased $1.4Billion public press.
            Besides, we now need it to salvage the $1Billion a month Malcolm is borrowing overseas just to keep the government afloat while he his handing out billion dollar gifts of borrowed money. Interest payments alone are over $1.4Billion a month. This must stop or we will be asking for handouts from the UN like Zimbabwe.

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              TdeF

              Sorry, a mistake. Malcolm’s conservative government is borrowing $1Billion a week. A quarter of that is to pay interest on previous borrowings.

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              • #
                TdeF

                Under merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull, we are heading to a Third World country ourselves. No car manufacture. Aluminium refining closing. Petrol refining. The Maritime Unions strangling sea traffic. Fishing shut down. Heavy industry gone.
                We are become a nation of importers, another Dubai, a place where we serve food and wine to visitors.
                People do not loan money unless you have something and we are selling our country piece by piece as we rush into massive debt amazingly under a Conservative government elected to fix the problem. Strangled by the Greens and the Union controlled Labor party, nothing gets through the Senate, but Malcolm is not even going to try as he was put in the job by his ABC.

                We will become another mendicant state while Indonesia steals our coal markets and iron ore prices plummet, partly as we are desperate. We need the man with the degree in economics and without the smarm, our previous PM. A carbon tax would be the last straw. Australia will vanish.

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          TdeF

          The description Third World Country applied during the cold war. First world were rich democracies. Second were communist countries in including China and Russia and satellite states like Cuba and even India. The Third world were the powerless and destitute Third world.
          The second world vanished though, as Communist states missed out on the consumer revolution after the world and the huge improvement in quality of life. In seventy years those third world countries have largely remained third world except for Rhodesia which has been demolished by Robert Mugabe and turned into a third world country. Why else would he and his friends go to Paris?

          So now we have a UN tax but only on First World Countries. It has nothing to do with CO2. How could it? 6/7th of the world is exempt.

          Christiana Figueres sees it as a way of penalizing successful First world countries for having democracies, hard work, investment, consumerism and building infrastructure and industries and quality of life. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of the current mass invasion of Europe. Hand over the money. Nothing less. Otherwise they will brook no UN interference in their wonderfully run countries, mostly military dictatorships. Bankers like Malcolm Turnbull think it is a wonderful idea. How a conservative government voted to appoint a Labor/Green Banker is beyond comprehension.

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          Robert O

          A large amount of the Tasmanian forest estate became World Heritage due to the political power of Dr. Brown and Associates who relied on the city latte set and the preferential voting systems. The concept that the forests are saved by locking them is a classic oxymoron as the eucalypt forest will not regenerate without disturbance, usually fire. In years to come if they don’t succumb to wildfire (in Tasmania’s case either accidently or by arson as lightning storms are usually wet), they will be replaced by rainforest species, predominantly Nothofagus.

          Anyone interested in Eucalyptus ecology, a good read is Max Gilbert’s Ph.D. thesis (about 1960) which is the University Library in Hobart.

          The idea that these forests are best managed as World heritage by some bureaucracy based in Paris, which knows little about eucalypt ecology, is ludicrous.

          Unfortunately for some this culture has encompassed the management of forest areas and the severity of the wildfires which are occurring and will continue to do so until reason prevails.

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        toorightmate

        It could be “spinning reserve” {spinning bullsh*t that is}.

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    Ted O'Brien

    They say that when Australia’s car manufacturing industry shuts down in 2017 Australia will have one of the smallest manufacturing sectors in the developed world.

    Without manufacturing there can be no development.

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      James Murphy

      Decreased manufacturing = decreased ‘carbon emissions’ = a happy Gaia, and unemployment benefits are ‘free’, so everything will be all ok,

      (unless of course, you’re one of those people who has some vague notion of economics, and doesn’t want to live off government handouts)

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        scaper...

        Actually, we could basket weave our way to economic prosperity.

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        Dennis

        Welfare now 37 per cent of total federal government budget spending. Around 50 per cent of income and company taxpayers support of subsidise the other 50 per cent. As business enterprises such as the manufacturing industry disappear national prosperity declines accordingly and tax revenue too.

        Eventually the nation cannot support itself, Greece is a good example along with all of the PIIGS. But this in completely in line with New World Order.

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          gnome

          Not really- that’s the way it’s supposed to work. The country is rich, and the riches needs to be redistributed to all the citizens. There’s no sensible way for ordinary people to get rich by their own efforts. If that was a way ahead, the hardworking citizens of the third world would all be rich.

          Someone who has worked hard and studied long to become a dentist, for instance, needn’t congratulate himself that he is more worthy of a high income than those dentists he is now competing with in Vietnam or Thailand.

          We’re a wealth-redistribution-economy, and there’s no better way to do it than by paying the poorest citizens. As long as there’s some balance towards reward for effort it will work.

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      Microbial Lank

      Of probably even more concern is the effect of the anti mining lobby and the combination of low metal prices. Without our income from coal, iron ore, gas and metals Australia will be in dire straits.

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      Yonniestone

      An interesting read at the ABS, education and work, 2015, Australia’s manufacturing industry has been the traditional backbone of developing this country, for every 1 manufacturing job created at least 5 others are too, anyone that believes we can receive income by producing nothing is certifiable.

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        Dennis

        Meanwhile in South Korea, just one example, on a relatively small land area a nation is powering ahead as manufacturers and producing steel from Australian ore and coal. A couple of million dollars worth of Australia raw materials per new ship and South Korea is pushing out a couple of ships every week.

        It’s not wages alone that has wrecked Australian manufacturing. Government red and green tape, powerful unions again backed by the Gillard Labor (un) Fair Work Australia industrial relations law, poor work ethics including sick leave being taken as extra annual leave, productivity from labour below world’s best practise, etc.

        For over 25 years I was employed by a manufacturing, distribution and sales business and I have manufacturing industry experience for many years before that. The company was wholly owned by a publicly listed company and I reported to that board of directors. After owning the business for a couple of decades there was a decision to sell it, not because it was unprofitable but because the directors wanted to change group focus on investments. I was offered the business and with well qualified advisers including a potential investor we considered not only the above industry average profitability but also the future. We decided that Australia was no longer a viable base for manufacturing, even if the very latest production equipment was purchased. The foreign investors who acquired it shut down the manufacturing side of the business several years after I left and took early retirement. They now import, warehouse and sell the products that were all Australian made from Australian raw materials.

        And as described by Yonniestone, the factory jobs lost were not the only impact on jobs, our business had many road freight contractors and some self employed, our suppliers lost business, so for each job lost directly there are others also lost.

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          Robk

          Not to mention the skillset of the workforce, without which innovation is a pipe-dream.

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          • #
            TdeF

            I was told Malcolm Turnbull was a successful innovator. I checked. He wasn’t. He was a former QC lawyer turned merchant banker, the head of Goldmann Sachs Australia who put in $500K and returned $55 million personally, 100:1 when MCI bought Australian Personal Computer founder Shaun Howard’s Ozemail. Shaun was the innovator and had just sold APC to Packer and bought Ozemail back for $1 but he needed more cash. Then MCI paid $550 million for Ozemail and Malcolm made a killing for little risk. A banker. A few years later, it was all worthless. Innovator? No.

            I fear a carbon tax or worse, a merchant bank run ETS and cannot understand how the Australian head of Goldmann Sachs, a major culprit in the GFC with fake mortgage derivatives could possibly be PM in Australia. The conflict of interest in an ETS is incredible. At the very least, he should not be involved in an ETS to be handled by merchant banks including Goldmann Sachs. We need our PM who said Climate Science was crap.

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Cheer up Dennis. If things go on a few more years as the Greens and supporters want, then they will find there is no money to pay for public servants, consultants, commissions etc. See Greece as an example. There will be woe, wailing and gnashing of teeth ( and no free teeth for the public payroll).

          That might seem harsh, even unfair on those who never looked ahead as they believed that the Government had an endless supply of money available for them, but bear in mind that the temperature is about to drop and be seen to drop (tales of ice and snow from the USA and the UK). Public opinion will turn anti-AGW and there will be a stampede of politicians. As Paul Keating would say “never stand between a politician and an excuse from being blamed”. Even the member for Goldman-Sachs will be moving rapidly towards the exit.

          81

      • #
        mc

        “for every 1 manufacturing job created at least 5 others are too, anyone that believes we can receive income by producing nothing is certifiable”.

        Who said anything about producing nothing!

        As Australia’s modern manufacturing base withers away like the sun bleached remains of a Pterodactyl carcass in a pitiless scorching saltpan new possibility arises. This age provides us with the opportunity to initiate a 21s century renaissance of lost arts and economies that in times prior to the industrial revolution were highly respected and skilled economic and cultural practices seen and appreciated in market places throughout all of Europe.

        Consider for example the boom that might result due to vast manpower liberated from industrial drudgery turned to the venerable and classic arts of face-painting, fire juggling, uni-cycling, palm-reading and the perennially crowd pleasing puppetry show.

        Of course chakra alignment therapy and body massage have been enjoying growth status for some years now but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t do with more of these touchy feely types; like baristas you can never have too many masseurs right?

        With the inordinate quantities of time now available to the average mug in post-manufacturing-Australia, workshops for new learning could abound, what do you want to learn; How To Knit A Mud Brick Macramé Skivvy, Build Your Dream Hut From Sea-Weed And Snot, How To Prevent Post Birth Waste by Eating Your Own Placenta, Catch and Cook Your Own Slugs Using Only a Hangman’s Noose and Some Stolen Kerosene, the options are endless.

        One door may be closing but a wonderful new world of possibility beckons.

        100

        • #
          Yonniestone

          🙂

          30

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          mc:

          I was going to suggest a /sarc tag when I realised that in many a jest a true word is spoken. It may well be that the gullible believers – the vast majority of whom get their income from the government – believe that this is the ideal economy. Why else the constant banging of the drum about the “wonderful opportunities in the green economy” ? How switching to electricity at 4 – 6 times the current cost will generate new jobs is beyond me. There is no shortage of bankruptcy accountants.
          The underlying view among these people is that they get their money from the Government, so there is a big bag of never-ending money which the Government can dole out. I suppose they think that the unemployed will in future be glad of a squeegee on a 6metre pole and a job cleaning solar mirrors. I wonder how the teachers among them would react if told that in future their class sizes will double, assuming that they aren’t replaced by computer technology?

          60

        • #
          gnome

          It could all depend on your definition of “producing”. We turn out huge quantities of coal and iron ore, and we do it very efficiently, which is why people want to buy them from us.

          We also turn out huge volumes of zinc, bauxite and aluminium, copper, lead, gold, uranium, manganese and a variety of rural produce, and we do it very efficiently, which is why we can sell it so profitably.

          If you don’t want to work in a factory, and you don’t want your kids to work in a factory, why do you think manufacturing is so beneficial? There’s nothing magical about factory production, which makes it good, and other economic activity bad.

          25

          • #
            gnome

            That’s a red thumb from the guy who wants to work in a factory. (Or is it just from a hypocrite who thinx other people ought to?)

            Nothing to say?

            12

  • #

    I think the world has three threats to worry about:

    – the climate issue and the monumental waste of money that goes its way,
    – the ISIS threat and the seeming desire to do as little as possible about it and eternal excuses, and
    – the growing trend across the world (notably universities) of the right not to be offended in any shape or form, and every effort given to make it so.

    This article, written in Jan 2015, is a short summary of what was perceived then: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11335298/Its-2015-and-the-world-has-lost-its-sense-of-humour.html and which has clearly grown into a veritable monster, as seen in university campuses across the US and the rest of the world.

    I’m beginning to wonder which is the greatest threat.

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  • #
    scaper...

    Lake Eyre is filling…yet again!

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    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      Thanks for the link. An inconvenient fact, for some.

      41

      • #
        scaper...

        Especially for Flannery who is off the public teat. The very first thing Hunt did when he became the Minister.

        Funny that.

        53

        • #
          ianl8888

          … Flannery who is off the public teat

          Actually not – he has academic tenure at Mac Uni

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        • #
          Winston

          And would that have happen, scaper, if Abbott wasn’t PM, and Turncoat was instead?

          I think you know the truth of that, scaper. The excuses for Greg Hunt, that dismal warmist stooge, are wearing a bit thin.

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          • #
            scaper...

            The same would have ensued. I don’t make excuses, I call out the BS spurned here by the likes of yourself!

            Some of the crap written here, an ETS and selling out to the UN is just as alarmist as the warmist rubbish. Selective scepticism!

            25

            • #
              el gordo

              ‘Selective scepticism!’

              I’m alarmed that the green left blob are so content with a conservative agenda on global warming.

              22

            • #
              bobl

              Not exactly true Scaper.
              Mal T would introduce an ETS if he thought he could get away with it and has said as much, and the Government has sold out to the UN giving them a Billion dollars that poorer south pacific nations could be using to better effect. He hasn’t so much sold out Australia to the UN as he has Vanuatu.

              The big problem for Mal is that we elected a conservative and now have a weak minded, lilly-livered progressive as PM who wants to appear to be hip with all the “Right” Causes, none of which seem to include addressing the debt and our long slide into economic collapse as one industry after another abandons our country.

              We need a “repeal” parliament that spends an entire term repealing the economically disastrous nanny state and government income skimming (eg Licences to work etc) and restores some semblance of capitalism to our society instead of all the feel-good do-nothingness and welfarism that the parliament has been layering upon layering us with since Howard. The last decent PM we had was Hawke, since then we’ve has liars and Nanny State apparatchik.

              For example Scaper the fledgling electronics industry we had in the 70’s was completely killed off by the C-Tick nanny state crapola inherited from the self flagellators in Europe in the name of “Harmonisation” and the Best Placed Spaceport in the world (Cape York) which would have spawned a trillion dollar aerospace industry which was killed off by selfish Greenies.

              It’s high time we gave some of this failed greentape and failed OHS & Compliance red tape the flick and embarked on some real nation building.

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              • #
                Ted O'Brien

                A lot of industries were killed off in the 1970s in Australia. The ACTU spent the whole of the 1970s preventing Australian firms from innovating, demanding that all the benefits of innovation be delivered up front to “the workers”, and busting any employers who did not kowtow to this impossible demand.

                It was particularly galling then in the later 1980s to hear Bob Hawke calling for Australia to become “The Clever Country”. Before he arrived on the scene Australia was a remarkably clever country. Don’t tell me that he was a decent prime minister.

                And, though nervous, I haven’t given up on Turnbull yet. A lot of the criticism I see is founded in ancient history.

                00

          • #
            Dennis

            Don’t forget that PM Abbott was unable to convince his cabinet ministers that due diligence should be conducted at the BoM following their management’s admission that climate change department media releases, hottest days/weeks/months/years, did not match BoM historical records data.

            No doubt the new PM and Hunt were pushing the no action to be taken argument.

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        • #
          Dennis

          PM Abbott was behind the closure of Tom Foolery’s NGO Climate Office withdrawal of government funding.

          The Abbott Coalition stopped funding a large number of NGOs but that was not widely reported by media. Media also failed to report the removal of over 1,000 (could have been more) regulations that added to the cost of running businesses.

          90

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      from wikipedia
      In strong La Niña years the lake can fill. Since 1885 this has occurred in 1886–1887, 1889–1890, 1916–1917, 1950, 1955, 1974–1977, and 1999-2001, with the highest flood of 6 m (20 ft) in 1974. Local rain can also fill Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre to 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) as occurred in 1984 and 1989.

      From http://traveloutbackaustralia.com/lake-eyre-facts.html/
      Lake Eyre experiences a small (1.5 m) flood every 3 years, a large (4 m) flood every 10 years and fills an average of only four times each century!

      Since we are supposedly in the grip of a strong El Niño the first can be discounted. It must be man-made Climatechange© – its worse than we thought.

      72

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Climatechange© and Climatescience© get around referring to them as 2 words which would cause some people to think they actually happen.

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      • #
        scaper...

        I suspect the pelicans are heading inland. How do they know when the inland floods?

        30

        • #
          Microbial Lank

          Scraper – the Pelicans read your post

          30

        • #
          Microbial Lank

          Scraper, I have a theory that a compound called geosmin which is produced by a bacteria and which is a very light windborne compound is the key to how Pelicans determine when the water in lake eyre arrives. When the water reaches the dry lake the bacteria species which make geosmin bloom and produce voluminous amounts of the compound which can be carried by the wind for hundreds of kilometres. Some animals, like the camel, can detect geosmin many tens of kilometres from its source and I suspect Pelicans have a similar ability.
          I’m not sure why my earlier post on this was edited.

          60

          • #
            David Maddison

            Is there any reason why water itself cannot be smelled by animals? It doesn’t have a smell for humans but I see no reason why an animal couldn’t have an olfactory system tuned to smell it.

            30

            • #
              gnome

              I know nothing about geosmin but I think M Link is more likely to be on the right track. We might not be able to smell water, but I can certainly smell when there is rain in the wind, particularly from the east. It smells like wet straw to me. I suspect that a little water in lakes smells about the same as a lot of water in lakes.

              What does geosmin smell like ML?

              20

              • #
                Microbial Lank

                Gnome – unfortunately our sense of smell cannot readily detect geosmin over distance but it is certainly very detectable by measurement and some animals. The smell of recently bulldozed damp clay or cultivated fields is about it for a human nose.
                Our ancestors may have appreciated the smell and I suspect early Australian aborigines used the scent to locate water sources in the outback. I can send some links but you can google and get some background on the variety of geosmin compounds.

                10

              • #
                gnome

                Sorry- M Lank (or Microbial L).

                10

              • #
                gnome

                Thanx for that ML- I will google- wet straw and recently turned clay are loose enough descriptions to match when you take into account our inability to describe senses, other than by comparison.

                We remember smells very well, but we can’t describe them.

                20

            • #
              Microbial Lank

              David, it probably can but the filling of lake Eyre has likely occurred about once a decade for thousands of years. The bacterial growth over a large area in just a few days is likely a huge event and with a specific location signature. The evolution of this olifactry reaction to geosmin would likely become an automatic one for Pelicans and perhaps some other water bird species. The Geosmin compound is also highly aromatic. A very light molecule which would likely travel much further in the atmosphere than water vapour in arid climes.

              20

          • #
            David Maddison

            Please friends who believe don’t be offended,

            00

        • #
          Ted O'Brien

          Probably they can smell it over a great distance.

          00

      • #
        el gordo

        G3

        Note those dates of strong La Nina filling Lake Eyre all happened during times of regional cooling.

        50

        • #
          scaper...

          And Brisbane flooding.

          20

          • #
            el gordo

            BoM is deviating from its original stance that ENSO will go neutral after this strong Nino, now they are hinting at a strong La Nina in 2016.

            All things considered, Lake Eyre should be full this time next year.

            50

            • #
              handjive

              Did the BoM predict Lake Eyre filling up a year ago? 5 years ago? 20 years ago?

              SMH, May 26, 2015

              Prospects are firming that the latest El Nino event may leave much of Australia drier, with conditions in the Indian Ocean possibly reinforcing those in the Pacific, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

              “We’ve had some weak El Ninos in recent years but this one looks like being quite significant,” David Jones, head of climate prediction services at the bureau, said, adding that the event looks likely to exceed the intensity of the previous three in 2002, 2006 and 2009.

              “You’ve got both [the El Nino and the Indian Ocean Dipole] likely to work in the same direction for rainfall intensity,” Dr Jones said. “Basically the Indian Ocean will tend to work with the Pacific and dry the Australian climate.”

              42

              • #
                el gordo

                At the moment they are saying the wet season will come in under average because of El Nino, but of course a continuing warmer Indian Ocean may upset that prediction.

                David Jones and his staff at climate prediction services should consider their future.

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    • #

      This Comment goes right back up the tree here to scaper at Comment Number 5, where he mentions Lake Eyre filling up yet again.

      We all know that Lake Eyre is mostly dry and only fills following floods.

      As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of the Bony novels by Arthur W Upfield, and in one of his later novels, he has an investigation at Lake Eyre. In that novel is the most evocative description of Lake Eyre beginning to fill again, this time, in 1957, following the huge 1956 floods, and the waters slowly making their way to Lake Eyre. It’s no small description as it covers around 40 pages during the context of what is happening.

      As seen in the image with the text scaper links to, there are islands in the middle of the Lake, and there are tracks out to those islands, and these tracks, are the only hard areas in what is basically soft areas with sub surface water forming a mainly muddy lake, even though it looks all dried up.

      I know that the novels are difficult if not impossible to find, but they are now available on a variety of e readers, and will soon become available back in hard copy novels, as all novels are due for re-release soon I am told.

      Without doubt, this is the single best description of the Lake filling I have ever come across.

      The novel was written in 1957. It had two titles, the first of which was Bony Buys A Woman, and, as Upfield was now contracted to Doubledays in the U.S. for release of his novels there, they asked Arthur for an alternate title, perhaps more politically correct, even in 1957, so that second title was The Bushman Who Came Back.

      I have an in depth review of the novel at my Home Site, if you want some background, and following is the link.

      Book Review – The Bushman Who Came Back (Bony Buys A Woman) – Arthur W Upfield

      The image I have there is the cover of the paperback I have, the sixth printing of a Pan book. The image on the cover shows an aboriginal tribal dance at a corroboree. This image was taken from the TV Series done in the mid 70’s. The main dancer in the foreground is a young David Gulpilil in one of his earlier roles.

      Tony.

      50

    • #
      Robk

      The power of thought is amazing.

      10

    • #
      Ted O'Brien

      Filling? Sez the ABC. Let’s hope!

      10

  • #
    handjive

    It’s a discovery forcing archaeologists to reconsider their assessment of the technological know-how of ‘primitive’ hunter gatherers.

    A 12-metre long lump of limestone sitting on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea wound not be all that strange, if it weren’t for the fact it had been hacked into shape by humans more than 9000 years ago.

    That it was shaped by stone-age humans is beyond doubt: It has several holes drilled through its base.

    How did the hewed stone block end up beneath 40 metres of water?

    The Mediterranean flooded some 9000 years ago as the last Ice Age retreated; inundating what was at the time a large archipelago between Sicily, Malta and Africa.

    60

    • #
      Microbial Lank

      Perhaps the raft that was being used to transport it sank?

      30

      • #
        RB

        12 metres long and 14 tons? A bloody big raft.

        30

        • #
          Microbial Lank

          Very large rafts of logs strapped together were used by ancient Romans. There are records of huge “vessels’ propelled by as many as 50 masts and sails. These could have easily accommodated the size and weight of these limestone blocks and would have been the most likely transport method.

          30

          • #
            RB

            I don’t know how likely the 9000 years old is but it does predate the Romans by half a dozen millenia.

            Kon-tiki carried 1 ton of water and 6 adults. Probably another ton of supplies so less than a quarter of the stone. Maybe possible for neolithic people.

            00

  • #
    Hat Rack

    After a month of tedious hand spraying, all the burrs were done and a few Melbourne Bitters were consumed to celebrate.

    Then it rained! Not a lot. Only 8mm. Just enough to germinate the next batch of burrs, cats heads, horehound, devils claw, etc., etc., etc.

    Here’s an idea. Instead of wasting all these billions trying to control the weather, how about finding some real scientists and giving them one of those billions to make weeds “Livestock Ready”.

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  • #
    poitsplace

    SURFACE TEMPERATURE: A thought experiment to show the inherent problem of trying to splice the surface record into an unbroken record when polluted by UHI

    Imagine a world where the temperature NEVER CHANGES…with the exception of urban heat island. If we put up a network of sensors, Most will show the same temperature constantly. But eventually cities will grow and UHI contamination will creep into the record. It will be at different rates at different places.

    In time we’ll get tired of this station and that being too polluted, sometimes reading several degrees warmer…so they’ll be moved outside the city. In time even these moved stations will need moving yet again while new stations start having their first issues of UHI.

    Now imagine trying to sort out the UHI. In this case we happen to know beyond all doubt (because that’s the condition of the thought experiment) that UHI is in reality the only factor. It starts in different places at different times. And we can’t just make one correction because many stations have two or more…but we don’t know the extent. And to the denizens of the world, they don’t really know if their world is warming or not…THEY don’t know if the otherwise constant temperature is changing or if its just UHI.

    THE UNBROKEN TEMPERATURE RECORD: Now imagine trying to twist this mess into an unbroken surface record using the same techniques as used by our own temperature record. Any attempt to string the record together into an unbroken one will result in adding a warming trend where none exists (other than UHI). It doesn’t matter if you treat each station move as a different unbroken record or not. You’re either going to have a spliced/realigned step change from UHI contaminated to uncomtaminated. OR you’re going to assume that the new site had been rising at the same rate.

    The reason for stringing it into a single record is to make it more accurate. But its not more accurate, it just gives the appearance of a cleaner record.

    In reality the only thing you could do to calculate the temperature “globally” for each year, month, day, whatever based only on the temperature from that time period and from whatever stations reported…and just deal with the much messier output. And you’d understand that there was SOME UHI in there….but you’d be unable to work out how much.

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    • #
      PeterPetrum

      Poitsplace- that is a very interesting example and one that I am going to store in my “scrapbook”. It is something that even the barely interested could understand – once the UHI concept is explained, as in my experience the man-in-the street has no knowledge of this – and it does clearly illustrate the difficulty of being able to prove that any year is the “hottest year evaah”. Thank you.

      51

  • #
    jaymam

    Alexandra Sifferlin at Time.com reported that the temperature in the Fairbanks, Alaska suburb of North Pole was apparently in the low-40s Fahrenheit.
    However ignoring that, there have been hundreds of stories that the North Pole has just been 50 degrees higher than normal. Various buoys have been cited, but none have the above-32 degree warming stated. One seems to be faulty and stopped transmitting. So there is NO evidence for any of the stories being correct, and yet the media eagerly copy them around as evidence of a huge Global Warming spike.

    http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2015/12/30/timecom-writer-cites-temperature-north-pole-alaska-north-pole

    50

  • #
    scaper...

    Apologies if this has already been mentioned here.

    The Fishy ‘Science’ of Ocean Acidification

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  • #

    Some interesting comments on Climate change from Harry Alford, Chair of the US Black Chamber of Commerce about Climate Change’s likely effects on the world’s poor.

    The world’s poorest – the 1.3 billion in developing countries who depend on wood and dried dung as primary cooking and heating fuels, smoke from which kills 4 million and temporarily debilitates hundreds of millions every year – will be condemned to more generations of poverty and its deadly consequences. Instead, developing countries desperately need to replace such primitive and dirty fuels with electricity, the most affordable sources of which are fossil fuels.

    Also includes some of a 2004 speech questioning why 80% of black owned business were immigrants. He makes the usual warning about the man from the government who is there to help. Alford has a great insight into Obama’s failures.

    60

  • #
    handjive

    If carbon dioxide is so bad for the planet, why do greenhouse growers buy CO2 generators to double plant growth?

    View it yourself in this picture taken from a greenhouse supply magazine.

    CO2 generators “improve plant quality” and “increase production.”

    They’re made in the USA and run on propane or natural gas, turning fossil fuels into carbon dioxide.”

    51

  • #
    pat

    2 Jan: 7News Australia: Kamilia Palu: ‘Man stupid, fix Earth!’: Gorilla uses sign language to be the ‘voice of nature’
    A gorilla who is able to communicate through sign language has starred as the ‘voice of nature’ in a video shown at a recent climate change conference.
    The video shows the 44-year-old western lowland gorilla talking about nature and mankind through sign.
    “Man Koko love, Earth Koko love. But man stupid,” she says, gesturing to her head.
    “Fix Earth! Help Earth! Protect Earth.”
    NOE Conservation, a French organization focused on preserving biodiversity, wrote the script in partnership The Gorilla Foundation for Koko and allowed her to improvise…
    They maintain Koko’s main message is: “Man is harming the Earth and its many animal and plant species and needs to ‘hurry’ and fix the problem.”…
    Koko’s sign language has been a topic of controversy, as many skeptics insist the gestures are nothing but mimicry.
    One user on a forum for skeptics said, “I’m continually surprised to discover how many educated and informed people believe that gorillas and chimps have been taught sign language.”…ETC
    The video was shown at the COP21 Climate Conference in Paris last month…
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/30475065/man-stupid-fix-earth-gorilla-uses-sign-language-to-be-the-voice-of-nature/

    30

  • #
    Dennis

    Of course we need to expose the climate change socialists’ lies and to show people that they need not be frightened.

    But with the clear admission from UN senior executive Christiana Figueres in October 2015 that it is all about socialism and collapsing capitalism the debate is now over, surely?

    52

  • #
    pat

    2 Jan: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Our spoiled, emasculated, de‑spiritualised societies in the West are in terminal decline
    In 2015 we witness a rare geopolitcal power shift – and in the face of every kind of new external challenge the leaders of the EU and the USA have never looked weaker or more bemused
    We then saw that even more meaningless “non-binding” deal in Paris, supposed to save the world from global warming. ***The very fact that it was the West that had dreamed up this scare in the first place was yet another symptom of how easily we fall for illusions; and again it was the outside world, led by China and India, that refused to buy such nonsense…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/12078365/Our-spoiled-emasculated-despiritualised-societies-in-the-Westare-in-terminal-decline.html

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  • #
    Another Ian

    ROM

    A gliding question.

    What is the state of play with gel coat crazing in tupperware?

    10

    • #
      ROM

      Dunno Ian.
      I’m losing touch on the gliding scene as I have given up flying of all types a year or so back even though my health is OK but my wallet size isn’t.

      Have had a couple of my gliding friends and acquaintances around my age from other clubs come to some serious grief including the loss of two lives, believed to be a blackout on launch, a couple of years back so had a long look at where I was going and called it quits after starting my flying in Tigers in late 1959.

      My real health problem is AGE. so I’m on the ELF diet
      [ ELF diet = Eat Less Food and it works too.!]

      I will be catching up in the next couple of weeks with an old friend of mine who now lives in Ballarat and has worked on glider repairs and refinishing for the last 30 years or so, so I’ll check with him on the gel coat set up.

      30

      • #
        Another Ian

        ROM

        Thanks.

        This came from a wondering on some of the wind turbine blade problems.

        Different subject.

        We’ve finally got under nearly 5 inches of rain. Thanks to global cooling (following el gordo’s post above)

        00

        • #
          ROM

          Another Ian @ #16.1.1

          Unfortunately, if I can put it that way, I am waiting / dreading the consequences of a major bush fire being started by a wind turbine nacelle fire.

          It is only a matter of time before Australia somewhere suffers a huge loss of property and possibly lives from a fire started by a wind turbine.

          Nacelle fires which are inaccessible to fire fighters due to the height of the nacelle plus the burning debris drifting for kilometres down wind are the second major fault of wind turbines next to blade failures.
          In the Australian context with our very inflammable environment right across SE australia where by far the bulk of the turbine farms are located, the almost guaranteed likelihood of turbine nacelle fires might well be a very major and an ultimately disastrous life destroying fault of wind turbines as they begin to age and become more prone to mechanical failure and electrical failures in the nacelles.
          In fact it is quite common for major gear box and bearing failures to occur in wind turbines within the first ten years of their operation.

          And as is completely usual for the wind turbine industry, they spend big to hide and lie and mislead and falsify any information and data that reflects unfavourably on the scammers of the wind turbine industry.
          —————–
          From Pierre Gosselins NoTricksZone site ;

          Catastrophic Turbine Failures, Targeted Blackouts Plague German Power As Wind, Solar Energy Increase

          Catastrophic wind turbine failures;

          One example (of many) of a recent catastrophic turbine failure is reported by the North German Ostesee Zeitung here. According to the article, just 2 days ago, the blade of a wind turbine snapped off unexpectedly, boring itself into the ground. The Ostsee Zeitung writes that local residents were “shocked” and the reason for the collapse is unknown. The online news site writes:

          At the time of the accident there was neither a storm nor unusual weather conditions. ‘We are baffled as well,’ says Carlo Schmidt, Managing Director of Windprojekt company, which operates the turbine in question.”
          &
          Wind turbine in Sweden fails with “incredible bang”.
          ————
          And from the highly respected Imperial College, London, a damning comment from some research done on wind turbines.[ July 2014 ]

          Fires are major cause of wind farm failure, according to new research

          [quoted variously ]

          Fire is the second leading cause of accidents in wind turbines, after blade failure, according to research out today

          Wind farming is one of the leading industries in the renewable energy sector. However, the industry faces a number of challenges, such as opposition by wind farm lobbyists.
          Today’s research suggests that incidents of wind turbines catching fire are a big problem that is not currently being fully reported.

          Researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh and SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden carried out a global assessment of the world’s wind farms, which in total contain an estimated 200,000 turbines.
          Comparing the only data available, the team estimate that ten times more fires are happening than are being reported.
          Instead of an average of 11.7 fires each year, which is what is reported publicly, the researchers estimate that more than 117 separate fires are breaking out in turbines annually.

          &
          Dr Guillermo Rein, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London, says: “Wind turbines are viable sources of renewable energy that can assist the world to reduce emissions and help wean us off fossil fuels.
          However, fires are a problem for the industry, impacting on energy production, economic output and emitting toxic fumes. This could cast a shadow over the industry’s green credentials
          Worryingly our report shows that fire may be a bigger problem than what is currently reported. Our research outlines a number of strategies that can be adopted by the industry to make these turbines safer and more fire resistant in the future.”

          Wind turbines catch fire because highly flammable materials such as hydraulic oil and plastics are in close proximity to machinery and electrical wires. These can ignite a fire if they overheat or are faulty.
          Lots of oxygen, in the form of high winds, can quickly fan a fire inside a turbine.
          Once ignited, the chances of fighting the blaze are slim due to the height of the wind turbine and the remote locations that they are often in.

          Since the 1980s, when wind farms were first constructed, the team found that fire has accounted for 10 to 30 per cent of reported turbine accidents. In 90 per cent of the cases, the fire either leads to substantial downtime or a total loss of the wind turbine, resulting in economic losses.

          The researchers also outline the main causes of fire ignition in wind turbines in the study. They are, in decreasing order of importance: lightning strike, electrical malfunction, mechanical failure, and errors with maintenance.

          The number of wind turbines installed grew three-fold between 2007-2012 and the instances of reported fires in wind farms are increasing, say the researchers. However, the ratio of fire accidents per turbine installed has decreased significantly since 2002.

          According to the researchers, the true extent of these fires has been hard to assess because official reports about fires are either incomplete, biased or contain non-publically available data.

          In an effort to get a clearer picture about the true extent of fires in wind farms, the team carried out an extensive analysis of data from a wide range of sources. This included Government reports, data from anti- wind farm lobbyists and information gathered by major newspaper investigations.

          >>>>>>>>>>>>

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  • #
    Dennis

    That’s not fair, Tom Foolery does not wear thongs.

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    AndyG55

    BassLink is down and could be for several weeks, and Tassie’s hydro dams are very low.

    They are re-starting the Tamar Valley gas (fossil fuel) power station (which they closed last year) to try to continue supplying electricity.

    Good think its summer down there !!

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    john karajas

    Well wadda ya know! El Nino is in full flight BUT THE DROUGHT IN INLAND QUEENSLAND IS BROKEN! YESSIREE, THE LEICHHARDT RIVER FLOWING THROUGH THE ISA IS IN FLOOD. One in the eye for the Warmists. BLOODY BEWDY!

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    • #
      Microbial Lank

      Lake Eyre filling up and currently heavy rain in SE Queensland/NE NSW will be feeding into the Murray/Darling.

      60

      • #
        AndyG55

        Rain in Newcastle.. again…. and for the next several days by the look of it.

        Where is that nice warm summer we used to enjoy. 🙁

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    Rod Stuart

    For those that don’t know the true history of mankind …Here is a condensed version:
    Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

    The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.

    These were the foundations of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: 1 . Liberals, and 2. Conservatives.
    Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

    Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement… Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the Conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

    Some of these Liberal men eventually evolved into women. They became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy Liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that Conservatives provided.

    Over the years, Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass for obvious reasons.

    Modern Liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard Liberal fare.

    Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are Liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t fair to make the pitcher also bat.

    Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Molson or Moosehead. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, engineers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other Conservatives who want to work for a living.

    Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the Liberals remained in Europe when Conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

    Here ends today’s lesson in world history

    Please note:
    It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so
    convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more Liberals just to piss them off.

    And there you have it, period. Let your next action reveal your true self,
    I’m going to have another beer.

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      Michael Collard

      Another important event was the discovery of fire for the BBQ. It also provides light so you can find your beer after sunset.
      Otherwise, you’ve just about summed it up.

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      William

      Don’t forget the invention of the club.
      This was used to unambiguously resolve the “no means yes” issue.
      Also was very useful to explain issues to Liberals in terms they understand, while not wasting valuable beer drinking time.

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      mc

      Scholarly, succinct, enlightening, excellent work Rod Stewart! Looking forward to the next essay.

      00

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    Big Dave

    Thought I’d trawl through the resumes of our political masters over at aph.gov.au. Of the 73 Liberal reps only one had formal engineering qualifications. Law/arts were in the majority. Clueless trumps hard reality when it comes to politics.

    I often find myself biting my tongue in company, generally when some airhead, know it all is extolling the virtues of PV solar electricity and batteries. Perhaps the solution for the alternative electricity believers is to install smart meters, configured so that the sum of available power equals the total being generated at any instant I.e. They cannot use coal or gas power, only wind and solar. Wonder how long they’d keep up the solar and wind mantra.

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      gnome

      If everyone bites their tongues when nonsense is being spouted, how can human understanding advance?

      Be a man, Big Dave!

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      kneel63

      That would almost have to be Dennis Jensen – I have chatted with Dennis on diverse topics, and he is a very empirical, evidence based thinker.

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    pat

    same old MSM in the New Year:

    2 Jan: Breitbart: Trent Baker: MSNBC Guest: Descriptions Like ‘Driest Ever,’ ‘Wettest Ever’ Evidence of Climate Change’s Impacts
    Joseph Romm, author of the book “Climate Change: What You Need to Know,” appeared on MSNBC Saturday to discuss weather in America.
    According to Romm, the phrases “hottest ever,” “driest ever,” “wettest ever” or “most extreme,” show the effects of climate change, which is “harming humans on every single continent.” He also added that climate change will continue to get “worse and worse.”…
    “When you hear a phrase like he said, ‘the highest ever,’ you know, ‘off the charts,’ ‘record setting,’ that’s a good sign that on top of a whatever local weather patterns there are or regional like El Nino, global warming, fossil fuel driven climate change is putting its finger on the scale and juicing the atmosphere and causing the even bigger weather event than you would have otherwise seen.”…
    http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/01/02/msnbc-guest-descriptions-like-driest-ever-wettest-ever-evidence-of-climate-changes-impacts/

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    Wayne Job

    Connecting wind turbines and solar farms to the grid is a money sucking evil. The greens and the flim flam artists are betting on some new magic battery technology to make them useful.
    The only solution for making these power sources useful is potential energy. Connect them to a separate grid and use the power to pump water to a useful height, then make useful power when needed. The only real solution is an anathema to the green no dam policy. Idiots.

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    el gordo

    Up the thread we were discussing Lake Eyre and looking at the dates when it filled, which appear to happen during a cool phase in the southern hemisphere.

    Chile offers a good reference point for late 19th century cooling and slow rise in the 20th century.

    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01bb08a21775970d-pi

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    Carbon500

    Here in the UK it continues to rain, with short breaks in between downpours.
    I find myself wondering what the CO2 concentration in the air is following a rainstorm – has anyone come across any information on this?
    No modelled results please – actual laboratory measurements of real air samples only!

    20

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    Rod Stuart

    Rare Eaths are far more than an environmental issue.
    Is China executing a strategy to enable it to manufacture superior weapons systems?

    00

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    retiredphysicseducator

    This is all about physics – heat transfers – thermodynamics. Most climatologists are not qualified in physics and do not understand entropy maximization, thermodynamics or heat transfer mechanisms.

    There is no valid physics which can be used to show water vapor and carbon dioxide causing the Earth’s surface to be warmer. Correct, verifiable physics can be used to prove they cool. The AGW hypothesis and the “heat creep” hypothesis are mutually exclusive: only one can be right. The latter is supported by empirical evidence and experiments, as well as by the Second Law of Thermodynamics; the former is not supported by anything and easily refuted with correct physics, because the solar radiation reaching the surfaces of Earth and Venus is far too short of the mark and cannot possibly explain observed temperatures. Furthermore, there is no valid physics that claims (as the IPCC et al do) that radiation can be compounded and the sum of back radiation and solar radiation used in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations to explain the 288K estimated mean surface temperature of Earth, or the 735K mean surface temperature of Venus, which would need flux of about 20,000W/m^2. That is why I can confidently offer AU $10,000 for proving me wrong, subject to the conditions on my blog.

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    Geoff Sherrington

    Somebody here blogging about temperatures noted that there are different versions of T. This has been common knowledge since the first flight of Trans World Airlines when a passenger asked a hostie for some TWA tea. Their Marketing department was aghast, but the Engineers were already onto the problem, devising new apparatus to dispose of airborne FAR tea and SHI tea. Delta airlines thought they had a problem with Delta tea, but it came back to normal before long.
    ** and here we pause.

    00

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    David Maddison

    Subject: Global Warming – Arctic Report
    Make sure you read to the end

    URGENT REPORT, from Washington Post.

    The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in
    some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report
    to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate, at Bergen , Norway

    Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change
    in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.

    Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north
    as 81 degrees 29 minutes.

    Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

    Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones,
    the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

    Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic,
    while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north,
    are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

    Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and
    make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

    * * * * * * * * *
    I must apologize.

    I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported
    by the AP and published in The Washington Post – 93 years ago.

    This must have been caused by the Model T Ford’s emissions.

    30

    • #
      Carbon500

      In reply to David Maddison, this might be of interest as well:
      A reader’s letter in the Sunday Telegraph, page 23 on Tuesday October 1st 2013 from Captain Derek Blacker RN (retd), Director of Naval Oceanography and Meteorology 1982-84:
      “SIR – I was a meteorologist during the Seventies when glaciers in Europe and other continents in Europe had been growing for the previous ten years, and pack ice had been increasing during winters to cover almost all of the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. Scientists were then warning that the Earth could be entering another ice age.
      The current deliberations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have conveniently overlooked this. Before insisting that humans have been the main cause of global warming an explanation of this apparent anomaly should be promulgated.”
      In connection with this letter, a look at information supplied by the Icelandic Meteorological Office is interesting. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, ‘heavy sea ice was quite common along the coasts of Iceland, but in the 1920s a drastic change occurred. Sea ice along the coasts of Iceland became an uncommon characteristic and almost a forgotten phenomenon around the middle of the century. An abrupt change occurred in the mid-1960s. Heavy sea ice distribution occurred almost each year following, but since 1980 widespread and long-lasting sea ice off Iceland took place (sic) at rather irregular intervals’.
      See website.lineone.net/~polar.publishing/seaiceincidents.htm for more details.
      Some of the important fishing areas around Iceland are located on the shallow banks off the coast of Greenland at about 63ºN. These banks can be ice-covered during most of the year, causing difficulties for the fishing vessel. Ice edges form ‘tongues’ which extend like giant hooks when viewed from a satellite, extending for many kilometres (over 100km for example) and curving back towards the main ice sheet. These ice tongues, which can change rapidly from one day to another, are particularly important for fishing vessels operating near the ice edge. In some cases the ice tongues can turn back towards the main ice pack and vessels near the ice edge can be trapped. Consequently trawlers need accurate ice edge maps updated every day.
      Seeearth.esa.int/…/data_util/…/Ice…/fishing_on_ice_covered_denmark.html‎ for more details and images.

      10

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    el gordo

    Ball lightning doesn’t quite fit, but they are still confident that’s what it is.

    http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/strange-light-above-canberra-probably-ball-lightning-astronomer-says/430181

    20

    • #
      David Maddison

      Why didn’t they blame climate change?

      00

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      hehee. That’s got to be fake.

      The aurora initially seen in the background fades out to nothing in less than 5 seconds at the end, too fast for a normal aurora. Also there is no known mechanism for tropospheric lightning to prevent the ionisation of stratospheric gases by cosmic rays, so lightning can’t stop auroras. So the aurora is probably fake.

      The “ball” flash leaves a ring-shaped glow, which should be impossible if energy is spreading outwards from the centre. That was surely added digitally.

      The aircraft warning lights are sharp and easily visible in the distance, so there does not seem to be much haze or rain around. The ball’s glow is not diffuse reflection from something in the air. The way the ball’s glow spreads out over the frame, seemingly over the top of nearby objects like the roofline, suggests it is occurring on the image sensor and not in the atmosphere. But from the streetlights we can already see that the point-spread function on the sensor of an overly bright source is limited to a 5 pixels radius at the most, not the huge glow seen around the ball. This again seems like a superimposed digital effect.

      In the video there is a briefly a spooky increase in image sensor noise a few seconds after the flash, co-incident with a low rumble sound. If the imaging noise was real then it can only be caused by electromagnetic radiation, which would arrive at the camera at the same time as the visible light does, not a few seconds later, as EMFs travel 1 million times faster than sound. So the spooky image noise was added as an after-effect too.

      But the most obvious sign that this has all been faked is that the ball lightning, which should be acting as a nearly point source of light, does not cast any well-defined shadows on any of the foreground objects.
      See comparison: http://imgur.com/a/jJqgP

      You might forgive any one of these oddities individually, but put it all together and… fake, fake, fake!

      30

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    Rod Stuart

    This very insightful link is from Fabius Maximus via WUWT.
    Note the final paragraph. It describes precisely the outcome that Joanne and Dr. Evans are trying to achieve.

    00

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    Doug Cotton

    “The second law of thermodynamics states that in every real process the sum of the entropies of all participating bodies is increased. In the idealized limiting case of a reversible process, this sum remains unchanged.” [source]

    Entropy is NOT the opposite of energy. It can increase without any variation in total energy. Entropy is a measure of the progression towards total dissipation of unbalanced energy potentials, where such potentials can involve any form of energy including gravitational potential energy. The density gradient in a troposphere approaches stability as entropy approaches a maximum. Stability obviously occurs when there are no remaining unbalanced energy potentials. That same state (called thermodynamic equilibrium) has a homogeneous sum of molecular (gravitational potential energy + kinetic energy) and hence it has a temperature gradient (dT/dH) which, in the absence of radiation (such as in a sealed, perfectly insulated vertical cylinder of argon) can be calculated from the equal exchange of PE and KE as follows, where m is mass and cp is the specific heat …

    m.g.dH = – m.cp.dT

    dT/dH = -g/cp

    Because gravity forms the temperature gradient in a planet’s troposphere, there is no room for James Hansen’s guess that it must be backradiation that is doing so. Ironically, inter-molecular radiation (such as between water vapour molecules) reduces the temperature gradient, working against the gravitationally-induced gradient. Thus the thermal plot rotates downwards at the surface end and the “greenhouse gas” water vapour cools, which is in accord with observation. So too do CO2 and CH4 for the same reason.

    08

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    Yes, I did send it by email to Joanne when first written. What I do object to is my replies to critical (and cynical) remarks on the other thread being deleted, thus not allowing right of reply, regardless as to whether it is considered off topic or not. (Animals don’t need to adapt because the temperatures will not rise over one degree, and even that will be natural warming, followed by 500 years of cooling.) Of course you can delete the duplicate replies.

    Obviously I have written many thousands of comments on at least 30 or 40 different climate blogs (and literally hundreds of different social media climate threads) and these cynical remarks are typical at first until people start to realise that I know my stuff and what I write is first-in-the-world breakthrough science that turns the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture on its head. That GH conjecture is totally wrong: radiation reaching a planet’s surface is not the primary determinant of the surface temperature. Only my “heat creep” hypothesis correctly explains temperatures and the required heat flows everywhere in the Solar System – even in a vortex tube.

    08

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    Joanne writes: “Doug, I’ve sent your material several times to the smartest minds I know, and no one seems to find it convincing.” What is a “smart mind” – are they qualified in physics with specialised post-graduate study in thermodynamics easily equivalent to a PhD – as I have done?

    No it doesn’t have to be impossible to respond to these “smartest” people. For a start, did you send the 2013 paper, or link them to the website or the 43 minute video presentation? They need to discuss their lack of understanding with me and I will set them straight. That’s where a blog article would be good. When Roy Spencer tried to refute me there were over 1,500 comments on his thread. I have responded to all attempted refutations that I know of, and nobody can prove the heat creep hypothesis to be false. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that is correct, and it even occurs in a common vortex tube. You can read the positive reviews of my book on Amazon if you need further convincing.

    It is “interesting” because it demolishes the greenhouse conjecture and then provides for the first time in world literature an explanation of temperatures and the necessary heat transfer mechanisms in all tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores of planets and satellite moons throughout the Solar System. (I have also been first in the world to use the heat creep hypothesis to explain and quantify the temperature difference in vortex tubes – as I have documented at Wikipedia.)

    What on Earth makes you think I haven’t convinced anyone else, especially when over 115,000 have visited my websites and blogs and nobody has come back with any related argument proving any of it wrong. I have had several articles published without the need for significant editing. Your problem is that you don’t yet appreciate the HUGE significance of all this. Both my papers and my book have had the nod from persons who understand it and agree it’s all correct. The evidence proves that anyway.

    You see, Joanne, you have nothing in the way of an hypothesis that even explains the observed surface temperature of Earth, let alone that of Venus or at the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus where it’s hotter than Earth. The greenhouse conjecture certainly does not do so. You probably think planets are just cooling off, but the truth is that their cores are maintained at hot temperatures by solar energy that is trapped under the gravitationally induced gradient. Read my comment about the coincidences, for example, because it proves that the probability of my being wrong is thus infinitesimal.

    To show no interest and no effort, not even for 10 minutes to read the blog, does a great disservice to Australia, Jo.

    08

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    Doug Cotton

    The “coincidences” argument is …

    Others have shown that all planetary tropospheres exhibit a temperature gradient closely related to the negative quotient of the acceleration due to gravity and the weighted mean specific heat of the gases. (There is a small reduction due to inter-molecular radiation, such as we see for water vapour.) But the overall level of the temperature plot in all planets is anchored by the weighted mean effect of the key absorbing layers, usually in the stratosphere and upper troposphere, where radiative balance with insolation is achieved. These are often the only regions where the solar radiation is strong enough to raise the existing temperature a little each planetary morning after cooling the night before. For example, on Venus this happens in regions where the temperature is less than about 400K. The direct solar radiation reaching the Venus surface cannot raise its temperature – not by a long shot. The fact that for all planets the temperature between the core and this mean anchoring altitude follows the calculated temperature gradient and gets down to the expected temperature that is in radiative balance with the Sun would be a huge coincidence if I were wrong in my explanation that shows why the temperature builds up from the anchoring layers towards the core with energy transferred downwards by the “heat creep” process that is maximizing entropy in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. So the probability of my being wrong is statistically infinitesimal.

    08

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    People will only understand the “heat creep” hypothesis when they study the “heat creep” diagrams (in my website, paper and book) and the detailed explanation. Several physicists have agreed it is spot on with the physics. I have made the original paper available free on-line so that people don’t have to buy the book.

    The “heat creep” hypothesis (based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics) obviates all need for concern over “greenhouse” gases, and shows why carbon dioxide in fact cools by a minuscule amount.

    The IPCC greenhouse radiative forcing hypothesis and my heat creep hypothesis are mutually exclusive, so only one can be correct at most.

    The study I produced (in the Appendix of my 2013 paper) clearly shows water vapour cools. Statistically the probability of average water vapour concentrations doing most of “33 degrees” of warming (as the IPCC claims) is infinitesimal.

    This is a HUGE breakthrough in our understanding of atmospheric physics.

    Of course there will be those who try to smear me, just as there were for Einstein. But the evidence is there to support it overwhelmingly. I have even been able to use the hypothesis to explain and quantify (for the first time in world literature) the observed temperature differences in Ranque-Hilsch vortex tubes, as you can read in my comments and computations here on Wikipedia.

    08

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    Jo

    I have read (and quoted from) David’s Topic #11 and also read #10, but the incorrect assumption that carbon dioxide warms meant I had no reason to accept these assertive claims and what followed therefrom, especially since I understand the physics that tells us the opposite. His and my hypotheses are mutually exclusive.

    My hypothesis (being partly based on concepts first put forward in the 19th century) proves David and the IPCC etc wrong. The fact that the surface temperature cannot be explained with correct physics also proves them wrong. So too does my study showing water vapour cools.

    What I use is long established physics, namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    Hence, if David and the IPCC etc wish to put forward ideas that ignore basic physics, meaning that they ignore the maximum entropy production which the Second Law says will tend to occur, thus establishing a stable temperature gradient which, as Big Wave Dave said, “obviates the need for concern over GH gases,” then the onus is on them to prove what they say, not only with valid physics, but also empirical evidence, experiments and studies, as appropriate and as is usually done in physics. Concepts that ignore the Second (“supreme”) Law are usually wrong. In that I have produced a study showing water vapour cooling by about 2 degrees for each 1% (not warming by about 20 degrees for each 1% as the IPCC implies) then the onus is on the IPCC (or David) to either fault the study (for which all data is listed) or produce a counter study. Funny how no such study has exists anywhere, as far as I can ascertai. / sarc

    What you have not yet realised is that I can help you and David overcome the incorrect belief that you have been led to accept because of your lack of sufficient education about and/or understanding of just what entropy is and what processes have to occur for it to be maximized, and what the conditions will thus be in the state of maximum entropy which physicists call thermodynamic equilibrium.

    I’m not being rude or disrespectful – just factual. Hansen understood none of this either. Watts knows the gravito-thermal effect would refute the GH conjecture, so he tried to get Robert Brown to prove it wrong, but Brown also lacked the understanding of entropy (and didn’t discuss maximum entropy at all) as I have shown on the WUWT errors page on my website where I refute his pathetic attempt.

    Soon I guess I’ll have to add a “Jo Nova errors” page and link to it from a few hundred social media climate threads and some climate blogs if I’m not allowed to defend my hypothesis and refute David’s even in Unthreaded comments.

    I am committed for life to exposing the errors in the concept of radiative forcing dreamed up by Hansen and used to fool our Australian Government (thus affecting me) and world governments, thus wasting money, causing poverty and death. If you choose to run a blog, then, in the interests of science, you should allow comments that refute anything you take responsibility for publishing. There might even be legal implications that will lead to some key Luke or Warmist some day, somewhere in the US perhaps, being held to prove their case in a court, or face fraud charges.

    07

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    Jo and David

    I have communicated everything that explains and makes water-tight my “heat creep” hypothesis. You just haven’t studied it enough. The sequence now on Roy Spencer’s thread starting here also just about fully explains everything also. I’ve also offered to answer questions about my hypothesis. I’m just not interested in hearing about another variation on the radiative forcing conjecture that I know is false physics.

    I am not meaning that David believes the sensitivity calculations and maybe some minor details, but he DOES believe the paradigm that back radiation can be added to solar radiation and the total used in Stefan Boltzmann calculations to get the surface temperature. Radiation cannot be thus compounded, yet that is a key assumption of the radiative forcing GH conjecture. It was refuted in my 2012 paper which you also have not studied in nearly 4 years.

    The other wrong assumption that David believes (and I quoted him) is that if carbon dioxide alters the radiative balance then the surface temperature will vary in proportion with (in his words) the slope of the Stefan-Boltzmann curve – presumably he means the S-B expression with T as subject on the LHS and a fourth root of flux on the RHS.

    An increase in carbon dioxide does not cause warming of the surface because radiation is not setting the surface temperature in the first place.

    06

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    The radiative greenhouse conjecture is built upon the same assumptions that David Evans uses in his posts late last year, namely that a planet’s surface temperature is determined primarily by the radiation which reaches it. This is not the case for every planet with a significant atmosphere, because the gravito-thermal effect then dominates and we have a totally different paradigm in an altogether different ball park. In a sense, gravity “props up” the surface end of the plot of temperature against altitude, rather than Hansen’s concept that atmospheric (back) radiation does it. James Hansen was not advanced enough in his understanding of thermodynamics to realise why this heat creep happens, so he wrongly guessed that back radiation was supplying the needed energy. Most climatologists, have not yet understood this critically important point.

    There is absolutely no other explanation than that downward natural convective heat transfers (which in physics include thermal diffusion) are obviously happening on Venus, Uranus, Neptune etc and they must also happen on Earth, because radiation does not supply sufficient thermal energy into the surface to explain the temperature.

    Now, sketch a plot of temperature against altitude, then, pick a point around 4Km altitude and reduce the gradient of the plot by rotating it anticlockwise about that pivoting altitude. This must happen in order to keep radiative balance with the Sun, because the area under the plot is approximately related to the outward flux. That is why water vapour cools, and carbon dioxide does also because of inter-molecular radiation having a temperature-leveling effect and thus working against the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient.

    Because AGW proponents (Lukes and warmists) cannot explain how or why the surface temperature is related to radiation reaching that surface (in other words, it has nothing to do with radiative balance) they cannot assume that altering radiative balance will affect surface temperature. That’s basic logic. They have no valid physics supporting the conjecture that carbon dioxide warms. The IPCC most certainly also claims water vapour warms, doing most of “33 degrees” of warming, whereas, in fact, it cools the surface by reducing the temperature gradient whilst still keeping radiative balance with the Sun.

    The planet Uranus sorts the sheep from the goats, because it has close to an ideal troposphere with no solar radiation reaching the lower troposphere, and no convincing evidence of net energy loss at TOA, so no long-term cooling of the 5,000K core. David Evans has been asked several times, but cannot explain how the required thermal energy gets down to the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus, whereas I can. In summary David’s hypothesis is incorrect because of unsubstantiated assumptions, and the fact that nobody can explain the surface temperature with valid radiation calculations.

    07

  • #
    Doug Cotton

    For much more detail see comments on Roy Spencer’s thread starting here.

    06