Let’s play BOM Bingo, and turn every heatwave into a media scare-fest

Despite the headlines, there was no paranormal extreme in Perth last week — just a game called heatwave bingo

Perth set a sort of record last week for four days in February above 40C. The BOM and media paraparazzi glorified the latest heatwave, chasing it like it was a celebrity Kendall-Jenner-type-event when it was not that different to the heatwaves we’ve had before. Before it came, there were headlines about how it was coming, there were minute-by-minute graphs of degrees C, stories of people cooking cupcakes in hot cars, and there were projections  about hypothetical bigger, longer heatwaves that might come, maybe one day, someday: look out for “Temperatures into the fifties”!

Chris Gillham points out that this record was made at the Perth Metro station. Few seemed to mention that 9km away, at Perth Airport similar kinds of heatwaves were pretty common and things had been hotter and lasted longer in years gone by. This year the four day average at the airport was 42C but in 1956 there were 5 days at an average scorching 43.7. In 1933 there was a six day heatwave of 42C average in Perth city. And there were other heatwaves a lot like this a couple of weeks earlier, in January. But who cares about January when we can talk about the effect of climate change on February…

With Heatwave Bingo, every year’s a winner

With bingo, someone has to win. Sooner or later one combo comes up. The secret with BOM Bingo is to have lots of bingo cards. The more combinations the better. Because heatwaves have no official definition, the meaning of the term can change each day. And there must be 400 flavours of 4, 5, 6 or 7 day heatwaves which are split by town, state, season or month. The cut off can be 35C, or days over 37C, 38C, 39C, or 40C. We are multicultural, we can do “100F” records too. Then there are so-called “Perth” heatwaves which apply to one site, one thermometer, and which may not exist at other sites in the same city. Some heatwave days the maximum temperature barely falls over the line, whatever the arbitrary temperature cutoff is this week, and maybe for only 20 minutes, but it counts in media inches, even if it doesn’t count any meaningful scientific way.

The permutations and combinations go quite feral. If we felt like it we could also dig into the minima and mean records — was it the hottest summer night ever? (Not so, indeed the week before had the coldest February morning ever since 1935,  — Thanks Warwick, Lance and Chris. Funnily, we didn’t hear about that record on the news, though it did get one minor line near the bottom this article. Imagine if it had been the hottest February night…)

Heatwaves by averages versus the arbitrary cut-off kind

Instead of counting days over a line, we could look at the average maximum temperature during clusters of hot days — it’s less arbitrary.

Which kind of heatwave is worse, one with four consecutive days with maxes above 40C, or the type with six consecutive days with an average maximum of 42C.  The kind measured by averages may have a cool 34 degree day  in the middle of a six day run of 43s (see Jan 1933)? What’s worse  — apparently, whichever one is occurring now.

For dozens of research scientists and investigative journalists, the 399 odd non-records each month get a non-mention. Those losing bingo cards go quietly back in the box til next year, when their lucky combo may come up.

Here’s a graph of the worst 4-day average-maximum-heatwaves in Perth at the airport — (the data from before 1944 comes from the Perth CBD. See the footnote). Automatic electronic sensors were also installed in the last two decades, and they appear to artificially record higher temperatures. (See Bill Johnston’s analysis of the introduction of the automatic system and Perth temperatures]. So despite all the urban warming effect, and the electronic sensors, the hottest and longest average max heat-waves were in 1933, 1956 and 1961. If climate change caused the second worst February heatwave in central Perth, did it also cause the overall number of average-max-heatwaves to fall?

 

Hootest Perth Heatwave, 4 day, above 40C

The hottest four day heatwaves in Perth 2016 was not so special. *See Footnote for details.

No luck on the five day bingo this year:

Hootest Perth Heatwave, 4 day, above 40C

Spot the trend? No prizes for anyone saying that heatwaves are getting cooler in Perth:

 

Hootest Perth Heatwave, 4 day, above 40C

Graphs with help from Geoff Sherrington

From Chris Gillham:

A bit more re Perth’s heatwave and supposedly most extreme summer ever … it’s worth reading The West Australian 11 Feb 1933 for a wrap on the 1933 heatwave including its four consecutive 40+ days which Perth equalled this week.

As noted in the story, the 1933 heatwave was also six consecutive days in which the temp exceeded 100F (37.8C), which beat the previous record of five consecutive 100F days in December 1899.

Perth Metro 1994-2016 has never had five consecutive days above 37.8C, let alone six.

It’s also worth comparing overnight minima in the first 11 days of 1933. They averaged 4.7C warmer than 2016 which is experiencing its most extreme summer in history at the peak of a supposedly large El Nino and with Indian Ocean SST above average.

The first 11 days of Feb 2016 included 9.9C, the coldest Feb night since 1935, and the first 11 days of 1933 included 29.3C, the hottest Feb night ever recorded in Perth (and 1.6C warmer than the hottest Feb night ever at Metro in 2004).

I’ve no idea how the Perth population is surviving this biblically extreme 2015/16 summer 🙂

 There’s also been a media buzz about The “most extreme summer” ever with seven 40+ days

Chris Gillham does the numbers and finds again that Perth Airport has had many summers with such a run and hotter averages.

It’s correct that the seven 40+ days in the summer of 2015/16 beat the previous records of six 40+ summer days at Perth Metro and Regional Office since 1897. However, at Perth Airport there have also been seven days of 40+ this summer averaging 41.8C, and these can be compared with records since the airport site opened in 1945:

Seven 40+ days averaging 40.6C in 2010/11

Eight 40+ days averaging 41.7C in 2009/10

Eight 40+ days averaging 41.4C in 2006/07

Eight 40+ days averaging 41.5C in 1997/98

Seven 40+ days averaging 41.3C in 1995/96

Seven 40+ days averaging 42.6C in 1990/91

Seven 40+ days averaging 41.2C in 1983/84

Seven 40+ days averaging 41.0C in 1974/75

Ten 40+ days averaging 41.2C in 1961/62

Eight 40+ days averaging 42.5C in 1960/61

Eight 40+ days averaging 42.0C in 1955/56

Look at the long hot summer of 1962

From Lance Pidgeon some Bingo fun of a different kind  —  January 1962 was relentlessly above 30C. That month in 1962 there were only 5 days with maximums below 30C at Perth Metro. But in 2016 there were 11 of these “cooler days” in Perth. [Is that climate change at work asks Jo?] 2016 had nearly twice as many days below 20C minimum as Jan 1962.  (Wasn’t the greenhouse effect supposed to make nights warmer?)
 Perth Metro shows two 2016 days with a January minimum below 15 C. Perth Regional shows only one for 1962 .Maximums for January above 40 C are the other way around with two in 1962 and only one in 2016.  1962 had only 11 days below 20 Deg C minimum. 2016 had 20.b  The highest minimum for January 1962 was 26.2, That is 0.6 warmer than 2016’s  -25.6.
Februrary 1 2016 may have set a new record for the lowest daily Feb minimum temperature at that site (Perth Metro).
February 3 1962 holds the all time highest minimum daily temperature for any month that site (Perth regional).
Thanks to Chris Gillham, Geoff Sherrington, Lance Pidgeon, Phil, and well done to Andrew for getting a letter in The West.
The uber heatwave of Jan 1933,  The current heatwave of 2016, The heatwave of 1961.

 *Heatwave graphs were compiled from BOM Tmax raw (not ACORN). Start 1/1/1897 at station 9034 (Perth regional office) to 2/6/1944. Then from Perth Airport 9021 to 2014. According to the BOM online data there was no heatwave in Feb 2014 or 2015.  Comparing 9034 with 9021 in 1980 and 1992 Ave temps in Feb are 2C warmer at the airport. (We should see more records in recent times).

9.4 out of 10 based on 101 ratings

238 comments to Let’s play BOM Bingo, and turn every heatwave into a media scare-fest

  • #
    King Geo

    Off topic – this time I have a gripe with BOM providing misleading information to the MSM.

    Here in Perth, the Perth Metro BOM site in Mt Lawley, the site currently used for Perth’s temp data since 1993, last week recorded four consecutive 40 maximum’s (40.4, 42.5, 41.2 & 40.3 from 7 Feb to 10 Feb). It was a “heatwave” alright which none of us Perth residents enjoyed. My question though is why did the MSM make such a big deal of the four 40’s and that it was the first time since records were collected (since 1897) that Perth recorded seven 40’s in a Summer period, and that it was the first run of four 40’s since 1933. It was headline news in the MSM – but there is a problem. Vintage Perth maximum temp data was based on the Perth Regional BOM site at Kings Park prior to 1993 (1897 – 1992). Those familiar with Perth will know that the Kings Park site is adjacent to the large Kings Park forest and also in proximity to the “cooling effect” of the large expanses of the Swan River estuary to the SE, S & SW. Surely this a “cooler” location than the Mt Lawley site located ~ 6km to the NE, and well away from the large expanses of the Swan River estuary. How could BOM have any scientific integrity feeding the MSM comments like – “this is the first time that Perth has recorded seven 40’s in a Summer period since records have been kept”, when they must know that the two sites should not be subjected to historical comparison unless a “correction factor” is applied. I call it “deception” but they haven’t fooled King Geo.

    [Moved from an older thread where it was OT – Jo]

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    • #
      TedM

      King’s Park is also elevated.

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      • #
        King Geo

        Correct TedM but you will find that height above SL of both sites will be comparable. The key factor is that the Kings Park site is located next to the large Kings Park forest and also in proximity to the “cooling effect” of the large expanses of the Swan River estuary to the SE, S & SW. BOM make no effort to inform the MSM of this fact which implies they are “warmist” in their line of thinking – and we all know that is “fact”. They are just like the UK’s Met Office – a puppet of the IPCC.

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Absolutely nailed their modus operandi Jo, to constantly predict higher temperatures until some naturally occur then scream climate catastrophe due to you know what.

    It also doesn’t matter if the higher guesses fail to eventuate as long as the public retain the idea it was hotter than usual then mission accomplished, as we all know science now is about how people feel bout something not stupid observations.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Part of the problem is that the great unwashed are not deep thinkers.

      Now add in smart phones whereby every dimwit is all of a sudden an expert on everything ( “..coz my smartphone makes me smart”….as they say it with a glazed expression on their faces ….)

      And of course if the MSM ( which is the epitome of a brain-free-zone ) says it, then it *must* be true.

      We just have to keep plugging away at the huge lies the MSM tells, in the hope joe six-pack will eventually wake up…..but that will only happen when the cost bites them in the rear end….

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      • #
        sophocles

        I bought a new Smart Phone a few weeks ago to replace a C & N standard mobile which lost an argument with a brick wall. It was less than half price. But it had a camera!

        SDE. (Stupidest Decision Ever).

        30

    • #
      Robert R

      This BOM “bingo” behaviour is simply dreadful.

      When is someone going to expose this lot for what they are……………..

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      • #
        Raven


        I expect Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick – UNSW would be appalled with BOM Bingo.

        She says on her Web Site:

        I co-ordinated the first interdisciplinary Australian heatwave workshop in 2014, with the second following in 2015. I developed “scorcher”, where members of the general public can track heatwaves at many different sites across Australia.

        Also:

        But as SCORCHER explains, a heatwave is more than just one hot day.

        It is a long period of excessive heat, with at least three consecutive days where the daily maximum temperature is in the top 10% of warmest temperatures for that calendar date.

        Our new SCORCHER website uses daily temperature records that stretch back to 1910.

        So, according to SCORCHER:

        Perth (31.93S, 115.98E)

        The Daily Hottest Temperature in Perth on 23-02-1991
        – 46.7°c
        The Hottest Heatwave in Perth Averaged and lasted from 29-01-1991 to 31-01-1991
        – 43.7°c
        The Longest Heatwave lasted from 19-05-1972 to 29-05-1972
        – 10 days

        Say what? . . . 1991?
        Somebody please tweet Sarah so she can educate these BOM Bingo drongos. 😉

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        • #
          Robert R

          Homogenisation forces the fat out of milk………..and homogenisation forces the truth out of temperature data……..

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    • #
      Dariusz

      Just like JO I live in Perth. Never wanted to mention anything about exceptionally cold December and January in this city. This also happened a year before. Such observations have no statistical significance, let alone a suggestion of some climatic variation. This simply would be unscientific and if I wanted to a continue to thought would lower myself to the shirlls of the GW crap.
      Just like I reject colder summer months I also do not attribute any significance to the warm days.

      By the way I was fortunate enough to avoid this heatwave “enjoying” the unusually warm February in Poland (el Nino). Over here people celebrate the fact the temperature is no less than -3 degrees with little snow. My elderly parents are scared of snow and cold, and are fully aware of negative effects of heat poverty.
      In Oz sometimes I think that because extreme cold periods are rare, people have no true appreciation of how easily people could die of cold. This usually intensifies at the end of winter in Europe when in the old days food was running short and people were exhausted. Somehow such reality for the coffee sipping Richmond greenies does not enter into their salvation scenario.

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  • #
    Manfred

    Heatwave Bingo

    … or is it the MSM Temperature Trifecta?

    Combine ‘evah‘ with a physical variable of choice (usually temperature, though wetter, drier, snow, wind, cloudiness, pollution, etc. all do equally well), mix well with climate change™.

    It’s another trifecta day at the MSM. Make money and influence people the Green way.

    231

  • #
    Salome

    Meanwhile in Melbourne, we’re into the fourth or fifth day of a cool spell. Whatever does that mean to a catastrophist? (And, yes, I do note that it appears to be warming up.)

    192

    • #

      We’re getting that because Perth has sucked all the heat from the east coast.

      121

    • #
      handjive

      Girls in bikinis … oh, the humanity!

      Perth heatwave: WA facing longer, hotter weather with temperatures ‘into the 50s

      “Professor Will Steffen, a climate researcher at the Australian National University, said this week’s savage weather was an example of how heatwaves are becoming “hotter and longer”. “Heatwaves will be even worse than they are now,” he said.”

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      • #
        Manfred

        Savage‘ ???

        Tortured English. The anthropomorphic influence of weather/climate is now complete.

        110

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        handjive:

        In 1976 The Sun newspaper in the UK regularly recorded girls in bikinis ‘relaxing’ in the Trafalgar Square pool in London.

        OK, The Sun wasn’t and isn’t the world’s greatest paper and had (and still has) a thing about girls in (or out of) bikinis nor was it the first to hire models for such photos, but it was in response to claims that an ice age was coming. If it was consistent then claims of global warming should involve models wearing fur coats…hmm, I think I can see why they haven’t bothered.

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        • #

          Apparently, Graeme No.3, we’ve been looking at different “girls-in-furs” photos…

          50

        • #
          Manfred

          There’s always faux fur.
          One should bear in mind that the paint throwers would be unlikely to be able to tell the difference or conceivably, have far to much ‘fun’ to be interested in any distinction.

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        • #
          Dariusz

          I need to be convinced and any page 3 evidence will be most welcomed

          80

          • #

            Dariusz – I was going to link to some mostly NSFW, but non-“X”rated (US porn designation), but I didn’t know how strict the mods are around here.

            [The problem with taking the discussion in this direction is that it ends up with someone making a really offensive comment, one no one will see because it never became visible.] AZ

            40

          • #

            Well, [snip].

            At least I’ll know what not to post.

            [I’m surprised this wasn’t noticed and removed until 8 days after it was posted but it is off topic and could be offensive to some readers.] AZ

            20

      • #
        TdeF

        Professor Will Steffen. Part of the salaried group of gophers formerly known as the Climate Commissioners. They pop their heads up whenever something happens for which they can take credit as prescient climate scientists who have predicted fearlessly that some days will be worse than others.

        242

    • #
      PeterS

      In Sydney we are getting many cold nights and mild days this summer. How come we are not hearing exaggerated stories going the other way about the east coast suffering a mini-ice age, which happens to be closer to the truth than the runaway global warming crap?

      263

      • #
        TdeF

        Melbourne in mid summer, February the hottest month of the year, the equivalent of August in the Northern hemisphere and usually baking in a long summer heat wave is damp and cool. We can only hope some of the Perth heat makes it this year. Otherwise it will be one of the coolest summers in memory, but I am sure the BOM can fix that with a bit of homogenization by adding in a bit of Perth.

        282

      • #
        TdeF

        Love that you were red handed so quickly. Some public servant has made it to their desk at 9am in Melbourne. Runaway global warming crap. Exactly. First it is not runaway. Secondly not global or Antarctica would not have record ice, dropping sea levels. Certainly not warming. One part is right and you are red handed. There is no fairness.

        203

      • #
        AndyG55

        According to UAH Australia, January 2016 was the 34th warmest January (out of 38)

        The warmest January in the UAH Australia data set was 1979. !

        143

        • #
          TdeF

          Eventually they will be right. Then they can tell us how CO2 causes bushfires. The desperation for disaster is strong in the warmist cult.

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          • #
            sophocles

            … how CO2 causes bushfire

            We had a flurry (or was it a Flare? ) of fires shortly after New Year in NZ. A very Green Oriented individual tried to tell me it was because of Klimate Change. I should have taken a photo of the look on their face when I told them that was utter rubbish, Earth was at closest approach to the sun and we had to expect little things like that. (Perihelion was 4th of Jan this year, I think.) Besides, (pointing at the car’s CO2 Fire Extinguisher) CO2 is used in Fire Extinguishers, not fire Starters.

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            • #
              AndyG55

              Despite ALL that CO2 released by bushfires, what happens to the heat when the fire stops.

              GONE.. Not trapped. !!

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          • #
            Another Ian

            That’s why I reckon WWF stands for

            “Waiting for the Wheels to Fall off”

            How many of their dire predictions (projections) have come to pass apart from the rattle in the till?

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        • #
          AndyG55

          According to UAH, in Australia, January 2016 was the COLDEST January this century !

          72

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        PeterS.

        Sydney has been having a lot of mild nights, I don’t think there has been a cold night yet this summer. No heat waves because the winds are coming off the sea, mostly.

        The stats show the average temps are well above average.

        http://www.weatherzone.com.au/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=66062&mm=01&yyyy=2016&list=ds

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    • #
      Ron Cook

      But then Melbourne has NOT had the long, hot, fire prone summer that the BOM and the CFA predicted. Its yet another case of the CFA et al “crying wolf”. I cringe every time I hear “the hottest eva” or I am told that one or two days above 40 is a heat wave.

      R-COO- K+

      174

  • #
    Sean

    Our governments are much more clever here in the US than your Australian government. Now, even the snow storms and blizzards are blamed on climate change.

    Sean

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      So are shifts in the tectonic plates.

      I have been seeing consistent reports on how sea levels are rising in Kiribati, and how it is all due to climate change.

      In contrast, the Hawaiian islands don’t seem to have any significant change in sea levels at all. They are recording some seismic activity though.

      Correlation does not imply causation, except when it raises the eyebrows.

      152

      • #
        James Murphy

        Are you saying that sea level rise is somehow linked to a global rise in eyebrow levels?

        100

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Exactly!

          The more incredulous the scare stories coming out of the vapourous worriers are, the higher their eyebrows become. That is where they get that typical, “possum in the headlights”. look from.

          80

      • #
        The Backslider

        Now Hawaii, being so close to the equator should be showing significant sea level rise….unless it’s rising?

        10

      • #
        sophocles

        Rereke wrote:

        I have been seeing consistent reports on how sea levels are rising in Kiribati, and how it is all due to climate change.

        Yep. Kiribati has two International Airports. The great weather Klimate Change has brought has increased numbers of tourists visiting. So of course sea level is rising: every 400 tonne Boeing landing there is hammering the atoll further into the sea. 🙂

        10

    • #
      TdeF

      Lucky! Our doomsayers only get to complain about the heat. They must feel cheated. Perhaps they should move to Singapore where the heat is the same every day and it rains every afternoon. Their climate has not changed.

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      • #
        el gordo

        ‘Their climate has not changed.’

        Not in living memory, but during the Little Ice Age the water around the island was approximately 1.5 C cooler and the climate was changing.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        It only rains in Singapore in the afternoon in the monsoon season. But it does do so consistently.

        I am actually surprised that none of the vapourous worriers have thought to blame the monsoons on climate change caused by CO2. Their target audience would not know where Singapore is, and will probably not know what a monsoon is, except that it is probably very dangerous.

        And we thought of it first – what a coup!

        50

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          “I am actually surprised that none of the vapourous worriers have thought to blame the monsoons on climate change”

          That’s because they think monsoons are furry critters that kill snakes. For people concerning themselves with weather & climate their knowledge of meteorology is poor (and I am no expert, so no wonder there are claims that many meteorologists are sceptical and are only kept in line by threats to their employment).

          10

        • #
          el gordo

          Monsoon failure is a global cooling signal.

          00

  • #
    handjive

    if carbon (sic) causes Perth heatwaves, it’s Canberra’s fault:

    The Foreign Minister is accused of ordering an empty RAAF Challenger jet to fly from Canberra to Perth to pick up her and her boyfriend from a charity dinner on October 18.

    Canberrans are the biggest consumers in the country, but a new environmental report is asking them to live with less, showing the ACT’s higher-than-average wages are causing big problems for the environment.

    222

    • #
      AndyG55

      “showing the ACT’s higher-than-average wages are causing big problems for the environment.”

      I see opportunities to cut public servant salaries to save the planet.

      182

    • #
      Mike

      Nice find handjive…

      From the article: “This long-term challenge of reducing consumption levels is one for the whole community,” she said.

      The rest of the world is reducing consumption by the application of harsh austerity measures. Why should Canberra try to be different?? The statement above is trying to reinvent the wheel. Harsh austerity measures is by far the best way to reduce any anthropogenic effect on the environment… from a technocratic viewpoint nurtured by a completely private banking system that creates money out of thin air from the issuance of debt.

      Thanks to Paul Keating selling our sovereign bank. The Cooomonwealth in 1997 to level the playing field and create competition (sarc)

      The key to reducing consumption is debt and a very poor credit rating. Clearly the privatization process has not been swift enough in Canberra.

      Here in Victoria, almost all our state forest and water catchment areas have been sold to the timber industry which is financed by very powerful banks. The native forests are nearly all gone and have been replaced with plantation timber..,…. We are well on the way to becoming completely bankrupt and obtaining a poor credit rating and harsh austerity measures like the rest of the developed world’s first world countries..

      Canberra could start with having a haircut or two. Getting rid of their forests would be a good start and go a long way towards destroying their credit rating so that harsh austerity measures can be applied in line with the rest of the world standards.

      In this case, the reduction of CO2 emissions would be staggering. I Hmmmm-…

      🙂

      30

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Yes I loved the fact that Canberrans are the biggest eco footprint per person in Australia,.

      Oh the conundrum – the Socialist luvvies & Greenie hand wringers in the A.C.T. govt would lose huge amounts of votes if they wield the big stick to rein in the alleged ( i.e all in their heads ) APS funded “eco-crisis”. They are asking canberras to do with less….good luck with that.

      Canberra has Australias best performing Audi dealer – it seems that like teh Chinese, Canberrans are told to embrace Socialism but are too busy rolling in it to give one….
      Canberra has also become locked down in terms of parking – the need to fund the green powered trams has required a special-ops take no prisoners style approach to policing car parking…they need every cent to fund the green nirvana of tram usage….trams are good, but the whole green driven lunacy has gone up to fever pitch,. but it seems canberrans are too knee deep in audis and ferraris to really care…..

      I shake my head…..

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  • #
    PeterS

    The trend is clear. We are heading for a new ice age! Oh dear what can we tax now? Quick, we need more memory holes to destroy the evidence! George Orwell would be laughing his head off today if he was still alive.

    131

  • #
    TdeF

    Everyone has experienced heat waves. There is a great deal of luck involved and some years are exceptional. You suffer through these things, as through cold days.

    However this is the first time in my lifetime that anyone has told me it is my fault and that of Western Democracies and 19th century Imperialism. Robert Mugabe is making this claim right now, that the lack of food in Zimbabwe is our fault and we should pay him billions in compensation. This is now simply worldwide political opportunism without precedent or any basis in science.

    273

    • #
      TdeF

      I also confess to not worrying about where the species will be in four billion years, so I am also uncaring.

      I actually worry about where we will be in twenty years but a truly caring Green person is concerned about keeping everything exactly the same forever, especially the weather. A sort of heaven on earth. You can do that with modern medicine, electricity, transportation, the internet, telephones and coal. These things should be denied to third world countries so their pure existence is not corrupted by coal and sanitation and carbon dioxide.

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    • #

      Hey, Mugabe made me a trillionaire. I bought 180,000,000,000,000 Z$ off of eBay for $10 US a few years ago.

      And that was about 4x it’s real value.

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    • #

      I thought Zimbabee’s lack of agriculture production was due to repatriation of white-owned farms and loss of jobs by the agricultural workers under the Mugabe regime, not climate change.

      150

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Shhh…you cant say that….. 😉

        60

        • #

          Actually, I met a British trained surgeon from S. Rhodesia who had worked most of her professional there, and finally she had to emigrate for her own safety after working 30 odd years under the Mugabe regime.

          70

        • #
          beowulf

          I knew 2 ex-Zimbabwean farming families living here in Oz back in the 80s.

          One family got out in about 1979 after the first ‘Veterans War’. Their son who had been about 14 at the time described their farm houses and workers’ cottages encircled by a compound of razor wire and patrolled by their private army of black farm workers through each night. The black workers’ families were just as likely to be killed by Mugabe’s marauding mobs as the white families were. After dark no one got into the compound legitimately and they had six Blue Heelers loosed within the compound sundown to sunrise to tear any stranger to pieces.

          The kids and women were all trained to use semi-auto rifles and pistols, and they had stashes of guns strategically hidden throughout the house, just in case. They lived like that under siege for a couple of years until they could leave.

          The second family stayed and were one of about 200 families given a rock-solid assurance by Mugabe in 1987 that their land tenure was secure. About four or five years later they were trying desperately to get out with whatever they could salvage of their lives after they suffered a second land war and hyperinflation.

          Whatever you may think of the rights and wrongs of the land situation, they were two families out of hundreds that fled to Oz and took their accumulated farming expertise with them.

          50

      • #
        Another Ian

        You might not know that trere is the

        “Natural Resources Act Southern Rhodesia” 1941.

        When I doubt anyone else had strung those two words together in one sentence anywhere else.

        30

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Mugabe is a marxist tyrant…..hes a puppet of the globalists.

      60

  • #
    RB

    The old Regional Office site was in Kings Park at the Observatory on Mount Eliza according to a newspaper report in 1933, not the Botanic Gardens (I checked up on the heatwave in 1933 and it corresponded to the BOM data but a day out). The Trove citation is on another computer so I will need to find it again.

    The new Metro site is at Edith Cowan University (according to coordinates at the BOM site).

    I looked at the overlapping periods between the two and the airport site, for days over 40 at the latter. Both were about a degree cooler but I didn’t check for the effect of the shift from the Botanic Gardens in 1900 and the sift in 1966. The five day heat wave in 1961 at the Airport had one day 5° cooler at the old site.

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    • #
      RB

      An ABC story on the observatory.. I found this while looking for the altitude. It wasn’t a big hill but the 19m on the BOM iste is not correct. Even at only 50m higher, the readings would be half a degree lower than at the new site.

      Link to a paper showing that the readings were from the observatory site.

      91

    • #
      Bruce J

      The new site near Edith Cowan at Mt Lawley is not affected by the Fremantle Doctor (south westerly sea breeze) until at least half an hour and usually nearer an hour later than the old Observatory site, so is exposed to hot easterly wind for around that much longer with a consequent higher maximum temperature.

      How do I know? I lived in adjoining Inglewood in the ’50s and ’60s when the ABC regularly reported the Fremantle Doctor was in at King’s Park much earlier than it reached us, and everybody used to remark that “the ABC’s dreaming again”. Haven’t got any real, measured temperatures to quote but we were always 1-2 degrees hotter than the official maximums, and believe Mt Lawley would be about the same. Have the BOM homogenised the numbers to fit? Or do they accept that they should not compare current numbers with those from the old site?

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      • #

        It’s interesting here where Bruce J uses the (now) familiar term Fremantle Doctor. While this cooling breeze is now common knowledge, it’s a term which in fact goes back almost 140 years.

        What is perhaps less known is that, in WA, there are also two other similar cooling breezes, The Esperance Doctor, and The Albany Doctor. I have a Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary, (the big heavy one) and all three are mentioned in that.

        I first became aware of The Albany Doctor from reading the Bony novels by Arthur W Upfield, and some of you know how much a fan I am of that series of 29 novels.

        In Mr Jelly’s Business, which Upfield wrote in 1936/7, he has Bony working incognito on the Number One Rabbit Proof Fence, and there were three of them back then, and the Number One was the longest one and the most Westerly of them. This cooling breeze, The Albany Doctor is mentioned and actually explained as a cooling breeze blowing off the ocean.

        It’s amazing how much Australiana can be picked up on from reading those novels, as Upfield himself travelled the length and breadth of Australia during the writing of these novels from 1929 until 1963, and he actually worked on this fence as a lone patrolman himself for three years, a fence which at 1139 Miles long, was, when finished in 1907, the longest fence on Earth, taking six years to construct, and costing an enormous (for that time) Three Hundred Thousand Pounds. The fence was constantly patrolled, each man in charge of one section, on his own for months at a time. They had to repair the fence, and keep it clear it of debris. That debris would roll up to the fence and stop, building up. The sand would then blow up against this debris, and make a mound. The rabbits would then just walk over the top to the other side, so the job was a long and labour intensive task. The men only had one or two camels with them as pack animals with all their equipment for the fence maintenance, and all their supplies.

        Tony.

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        • #
          Bruce J

          Tony, In the ’50s and ’60s, I used to holiday on my uncle’s farm near Narrogin (some 250km North of Albany) where the Albany Doctor was most welcome on summer evenings after a 100 degree(F) day. Looking back now, it is really amazing how far North that sea breeze reached and how it was still relatively cool.

          If you enjoy Arthur Upfield, you may also like Ion Idriess’s non fiction books like “Lightning Ridge” and “Across the Nullarbor”. The latter was written in the ’50’s and covers a road trip to Perth at that time – from memory the bitumen ended at Crystal Brook (SA) and started again near Merredin. Another very non-PC titled book by Idriess was “Horry the Wog Dog” about Australian troops in the Middle East in WWII, but targetted at younger (young teen) readers. All a bit OT.

          40

          • #

            In this novel, Bony is at Burracoppin, which is (almost) due East of Perth out in the wheat fields and is all but 500KM North of Albany, and they were getting the effects of The Albany Doctor that far away. Burracoppin was where the Number One Rabbit Proof Fence started, and was the main depot for the fence which was constructed North and South of this point.

            Tony.

            30

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Why didn’t the rabbits just burrow underneath?

          20

          • #
            beowulf

            I’m assuming you’re not being facetious with your question Rereke.

            Foot-netting is the answer, buried underneath every rabbit fence and mostly dug in by hand over thousands of miles of fencing. I’m talking normal boundary fencing of smaller properties as well as the big Rabbit Proof Fence out west.

            Up until about the 1980s in NSW rabbit-proof boundary fencing of individual farms was enforced by Rabbit Inspectors controlled by a Pastures Protection Board in every district. They could ride around, check fences and check for rabbits on any property and order you to take eradication measures.

            Baiting paddocks with 1080-laced carrots, ripping and fumigation were standard practices. If you were of a more adventurous nature you could throw some Nitram and diesel down the burrow with interesting results. The trick was not being there when it went up.

            50

            • #
              Another Ian

              Interesting that Jim Noble (CSIRO Rangelands back when they acknowledge that such existed) suggested that many of the rabbit burrows in the eastern rangelands were taken over from bettongs.

              We used to trap rabbits in burrows here as kids.

              Haven’t seen a rabbit burrow from the small current population.

              Can we chalk that to to global warming?

              /s if mecessary

              50

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              No I wasn’t being facetious (unusual, I know), it was a genuine question.

              I didn’t realise that netting was buried under the fence. What a job, that must have been! It is a pity that fibreoptic cables were not invented then. The Australian Outback could have had the best broadband network in the world.

              Thankyou for the insight.

              40

    • #
      King Geo

      The important thing here RB is that the former “old Regional Office in Kings Park (it recorded temp data from 1897 to 1992)” was the “official BOM Perth site” during this period and was used for MSM releases wrt Perth’s maximum temp data. The “official BOM Perth site” then moved to Mt Lawley (named Perth Metro Site), ~ 6km to the N/NE, just south of the Mt Lawley Golf Course in the grounds of ECU. The main issue is BOM comparing maximum temp data from this Mt Lawley location (1994 – present) and using it to compare to vintage data from the “old Regional Office Kings Park site (1897 – 1992)”. Clearly the Kings Park site is in a “cooler location, ie it is located in close proximity to the “large well forested Kings Park” and in addition is also in proximity to the vast expanses of the Swan River Estuary to the SE, S & SW. The issue here is that in “Summer Heatwaves”, the Kings Park BOM site would have been cooled down by the south-westerly sea breeze (Fremantle Doctor) funnelling down the Swan River Estuary. On the contrary the Mt Lawley BOM site to the N/NE is too far removed (too far north) to get any benefit from this cooling breeze but instead receives a “somewhat hotter breeze” which has travelled “only over land” for a distance of ~ 16km before it reaches Mt Lawley. To compare those February four 40’s with the clearly “cooler vintage Kings Park BOM data”, and release this data to the MSM, is unprofessional unless BOM makes the point that comparing temperature data between the two sites is akin to comparing oranges & lemons. Clearly BOM feeding the MSM with “headline grabbing releases” like “this is the most 40’s record in a Perth Summer since records were kept”, ie since 1897, needs to be challenged vehemently. In fact I often ask friends did they no that the BOM Perth site moved from Kings Park to Mt Lawley in the early 1990’s and the answer is nearly always NO. And those that are aware of the re-location didn’t realise that Mt Lawley is in a clearly “warmer” location.

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      • #
        Bruce J

        While the BOM and everybody else refers to the “Kings Park Site”, I seem to remember the weather station being located adjacent to the old Observatory on the opposite side of Malcolm St, between Harvest Tce and Havelock St, West Perth, almost due North of the entry road to Kings Park and North East of where Dumas House is now. I visited the site on a school trip in about 1958, and in the ’60’s it was clearly visible from Malcolm St. So it was not actually in Kings Park, but at the time the area was well grassed and it was down wind of both the Swan River and the Park which would tend to keep the observed temperatures a little lower than in the CBD or northern suburbs (where the station is now).

        As the BOM are rabitting on about records, they don’t seem to have considered the old record from the ’50s/60’s (can’t remember exactly when) of 12 days straight over the old 100F. Not all the 12 days would have been over the now standard of 40, but it was still a long heat wave with a massive impact on people with little air conditioning and would have been perceived as being hotter than 4 days over 40.

        All this could be wrong as I am relying on an old bloke’s memory and everybody knows how accurate that can be.

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Bruce J, I’m not sure that the BoM has a clue where it was.

          Your recollection is no doubt better than its records. From the BoM website:

          http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/index.shtml?bookmark=200

          you get:

          PERTH REGIONAL OFFICE
          Bureau of Meteorology station number: 009034

          Commenced: 1876
          Operational status: Closed 30 Apr 1992

          31°57’20″S 115°52’11″E

          That on the Corner of Hill and Wellington Streets, Perth.

          http://www.bom.gov.au/clim_data/cdio/metadata/pdf/siteinfo/IDCJMD0040.009034.SiteInfo.pdf

          Use the Lat and Long above to check it out on Google Earth.

          The current station is at : 31°55’9″S 115°52’22″E

          Stancliffe Street in Mt Lawley.

          The BoM is a work of fiction.

          [Edited per request]

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          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            Correction:

            That’s Hill and Wellington Streets, Perth.

            There’s no Freeway down there. Delete: “right where the freeway north is now located”.

            Sorry.

            The rest is accurate. 🙂

            40

          • #
            Bruce J

            Again relying on memory, the corner of hill and Wellington sts in the city in the ’60s was either a service station or car park, certainly not a weather station.

            10

      • #
        RB

        I was actually wondering about the period 1966 to 1992. The observatory shifted and I don’t know if the weather station shifted as well. The ABC article has that it did move to Bickley as well.

        20

  • #
    A C

    On the basis of those graphs – it looks to me like the heat waves are getting cooler

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  • #
    Ken Stewart

    Remember the BOM algorithm can find heatwaves in Antarctica. See https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/heatwaves-from-one-extreme-to-another/

    Pretty handy!

    Their algorithm is described at http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/1/227/pdf

    Ken

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    • #

      There are two scientist groups down in the Antarctic at present. One is searching for dinosaur fossils on Vega Island next to the East Antarctic Peninsula. His explanation for extra sea ice to me in a comment, was that it was because of ‘warming’.

      Steve SalisburyThe increase in sea ice around Antarctica is most likely a direct consequence of the warming Tom Harley. Tightening of the Circum Antarctic currents in the Southern Ocean due to warmer termperate waters in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans amplify the colder sea surface temps close Anarctica (similar to a positive phase of the Southern Annual Mode), combined with melting of continental and glacial ice that then feeds into the cooler surface waters… thereby increase the amount of sea ice. We’ve been monitoring this situation closely for the last five years.

      The other research group aboard the Aurora Australis have been trawling for krill, and find they have to build a new theory;

      […] All parties were enjoying the krill fishing; except perhaps the krill, some of whom foolishly took refuge in our net. Whereupon they were delivered into the clutches of another group of voracious seagoing mammals more commonly known as marine scientists. Just like the whales, the scientists were pretty excited to be catching large numbers of Euphausia superba this far north where in theory they should not be. Construction work on a new theory will commence as soon as the rubble from the old theory has been cleared away. This morning, we completed leg 9 and are taking a more south westerly course down towards the Antarctic Continent over the next few days.…

      Finally, the ‘ship of fools’ expedition leader, Turney, has been making things up again, Adelie Penguins on the brink or something, 150,000 dead! The Penguin Man!

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      • #
        The Backslider

        Tightening of the Circum Antarctic currents in the Southern Ocean due to warmer termperate waters in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans amplify the colder sea surface temps close Anarctica

        You can test this yourself. Fill your bathtub with water. Place a thermometer at one end. Turn on the hot water tap at the other end and watch the thermometer as the temperature remarkably drops. If you add enough hot water ice will form at the other end of the tub.

        Yeah, right…….

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Ken , Did you know that according to UAH, in Australia, January 2016 was the COLDEST January this century !!

      41

  • #
    Ian George

    ‘*Heatwave graphs were compiled from BOM Tmax raw (not ACORN).’
    ACORN shows Perth for the 1933 period as 6 consecutive days of +40C and 8 days of +40C for summer. It appears that Will and the BoM boys only use their ‘world best practice’ data set when it suits.

    19330130 41.1
    19330131 33.1
    19330201 25.2
    19330202 30.8
    19330203 41.1
    19330204 37.8
    19330205 40.1
    19330206 41.2
    19330207 45.6
    19330208 45.9
    19330209 43.6
    19330210 41.4

    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn/sat/data/acorn.sat.maxT.009021.daily.txt

    BTW, the ACORN record shows little correlation to Perth’s RO which seems the only site operating at the time in Perth CBD.

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    • #
      Harry Twinotter

      Ian George.

      The ACORN-SAT is designed for climatic reporting, not weather.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        ACORN-SAT is designed for climate alarming., not climate reporting !

        Did you know that over Australia, the satellites have January 2016 as the 34th warmest in 38 years. !!

        The warmest January in Australia in the satellite records was 1979

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    • #
      Ian George

      Ah, now I have it. So, climatically speaking, Jan 1933 was the record for consecutive +40C days – however, weatherwise 1933 equalled 2016.
      So for instance 2013 is the climatically hottest year on record but it may not be the hottest weatherwise.

      I actually know where you’re coming from, Harry, but it’s like having two sets of books.

      94

    • #
      Ian George

      I realise that Harry, and I have read all the explanations here at
      http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/#tabs=Methods
      But the anomalies that appear between CDO and ACORN appear nonsensical.
      In Jan, 1939, Bourke had an extremely hot month (17 consecutive days of +40C). When compared to three nearby stations (Tibooburra, Cobar and Walgett), Bourke was the hottest using CDO raw data.
      After ACORN adjustments, Bourke ended up being the cooler of the three nearby w/stations. All +30C temps at Bourke had been reduced by anywhere from 0.3C to 1C but under 30C (2 days), temps had been increased slightly.

      The CDO record has been so tortured by ACORN adjustments, one has little faith in BoM’s climatic analysis.

      50

  • #
    Eddy Aruda

    Yep, more “World to end at ten, film at eleven BS!

    It amazes me that the climate scientists use land based thermometer data when the more reliable and highly accurate satellite data is just a mouse click away!

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    • #
      Analitik

      But Dr Carl Mears of the RSS says “stronger case can be made using surface temperature datasets, which I consider to be more reliable than satellite datasets”

      http://www.remss.com/blog/recent-slowing-rise-global-temperatures

      I wonder what purpose he sees in their own data if he considers it inferior to surface measurements?

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      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        Analitik.

        The RSS data set contains measurement for many different layers in the atmosphere. It is very useful.

        The troposphere synthesized measurements show global warming. January 2016 was the warmest [January] on record according to the data set.

        http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/upper-air/201601#tropo

        [edited as per note]

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          Opps. The warmest January on record – my bad.

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        • #
          el gordo

          From Harry’s link:

          ‘Because the stratosphere has cooled due to increasing greenhouse gases in the troposphere and losses of ozone in the stratosphere, the stratospheric contribution to the tropospheric average, as measured from satellites, creates an artificial component of cooling to the mid-troposphere temperatures.’

          ——–

          I don’t believe the stratosphere has cooled because of human induced CO2.

          52

        • #
          The Backslider

          What? So now we are measuring “global warming” on a monthly basis? What then are you going to say when we get a record cold month?

          To say that one month of data shows that we are all gonna fry, or that one month of data shows that the stratosphere has cooled is patently ridiculous…..

          What evidence do you have that CO2 caused any of this?

          While I have you here Harry, since you are clearly an expert in CO2 could you please explain why any graph of atmospheric CO2 rise from Moana Loa does not track with human emissions of CO2? These just show a very steady rise which does not at all correlate with our emissions.

          Could it be that human emissions of CO2, being only 3% of the total of CO2 emissions (within the bounds of natural variation), with the remaining 97% being natural emissions from the biosphere, are so insignificant as to not even register?

          31

          • #
            AndyG55

            “What evidence do you have that CO2 caused any of this?”

            NONE, of course….

            Its all down to the current El Nino, which has NOTHING to do with CO2.

            32

      • #
        Eddy Aruda

        Your post is disingenuous and a lie by omission. Here is the whole quote:

        As a data scientist, I am among the first to acknowledge that all climate datasets likely contain some errors. However, I have a hard time believing that both the satellite and the surface temperature datasets have errors large enough to account for the model/observation differences. For example, the global trend uncertainty (2-sigma) for the global TLT trend is around 0.03 K/decade (Mears et al. 2011). Even if 0.03 K/decade were added to the best-estimate trend value of 0.123 K/decade, it would still be at the extreme low end of the model trends. A similar, but stronger case can be made using surface temperature datasets, which I consider to be more reliable than satellite datasets (they certainly agree with each other better than the various satellite datasets do!). So I don’t think the problem can be explained fully by measurement errors.

        Since 2014, when the article you linked to was published, the satellite data has been corrected and UAH and RSS are now in substantial agreement. The satellite data agrees with and is validated by the weather balloon data. Satellite data covers 95% of the planet, surface thermometer data does not. Why should I trust thermometer data that tells me that the temperature is the same in the Andes mountains as it is in the Amazon jungle?

        152

        • #
          AndyG55

          There is ONE part of the world that has UNTAMPERED surface data.

          Here are the comparisons of the satellite data sets over that region.

          http://s19.postimg.org/8lgilst2r/USA_January.png

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        • #
          Analitik

          How is it “disingenuous and a lie by omission”? In the larger passage that you quoted, he clearly states that the IPCC models agree more closely with surface temperature datasets than satellite ones and goes on to the original portion of text that I quoted concerning the relative reliablilty of surface temperature datasets vs satellite ones.

          If you read the whole paper, Mears is trying to justify the IPCC models and discounting errors in temperature measurements as the only factor in the discrepancy between the models and the temperature data sets. He goes on to discuss “Errors in Model “Forcing” and “Internal Variability (Random Fluctuations) in the Climate System” for other reasons why there are discrepancies while copping out on the issue of the models themselves with the statement

          I am not an expert in modeling, so I will leave the discussion of possible model errors to others with more expertise.

          But in defence of the IPCC models, he does say

          Without convincing evidence of model physics flaws (and I haven’t seen any), I would say that the possible causes described below need to be investigated and ruled out before we can pin the blame on fundamental modelling errors

          But the crux of Mears position is

          The first 3 causes have no effect on the long-term sensitivity of the climate to increased CO2 and only some of the fundamental model physics errors (4th cause) would change the long-term sensitivity

          So he is defending the models against the discrepancies by saying no matter what the cause, the discrepancies don’t matter since he feels the models are fundamentally correct.

          10

  • #
    toorightmate

    Hey, hey, hey.
    Stop this commentary right now.
    I am from the AWG club, and we will not tolerate facts nor undoctored data.
    It’s just not on!

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  • #
    Ted O'Brien

    Interesting that in 1933 Hay St was six degrees F above the observatory. How would they homogenise that today.

    70

    • #
      William

      Hay Street would be homogenised to the Observatory to show cooler temperatures in 1933. Silly (no doubt rhetorical) question Ted!

      62

    • #
      toorightmate

      Easy.
      Down for yesterday and up for today and tomorrow.
      There! The science is settled – again.

      31

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘Maximum and minimum temperatures were below average for the western Pilbara and a small region of Central Australia. A broad region of below average maximum temperatures was recorded across most of the western part of Western Australia, Central Australia and a region across northern New South Wales and southern Queensland.’

    BoM January 2016 monthly summary

    ————

    I don’t think its a regional climate cooling signal, just unusual weather.

    70

  • #

    BOM email: ‘We hafta’ get rid of the
    hottest Perth Heatwave Record.’

    73

  • #
    Richard Hill

    Jo.,
    Follow the money. Now the BOM has ads on its website. Therefore they want more hits. Spicing up the weather will get more hits.

    92

    • #
      Bulldust

      I hadn’t even noticed that because I mentally block ads when viewing web sites. It does make papers hard to read anymore, given that most of the screen is advertising content.

      So do you think they’d allow WUWT to place an ad there?

      90

  • #
    pat

    sorry…but I find it bewildering that DM could be publishing this rubbish today:

    19 Feb: UK Daily Mail: Simon Tomlinson: Photographer captures heartbreaking image of an Arctic polar bear which ‘starved to death as a result of climate change’
    Emaciated corpse surrounded by molted fur found in the Canadian Arctic
    Photographer claims it died because melting ice made it harder to hunt
    Sebastian Copeland said: ‘Frozen remains of this bear point to starvation’
    A leading climate change expert last year warned that the Arctic could be completely free of ice in just 40 years as a result of global warming…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3452894/Photographer-captures-heartbreaking-image-Arctic-polar-bear-starved-death-result-climate-change.html?ito=social-facebook

    Wikipedia: Sebastian Copeland
    Sebastian Copeland (born 1964) is an award winning photographer, polar explorer, author, lecturer, and environmental activist…
    He has addressed audiences at the United Nations, The World Affairs Council, The General Assembly on Climate in New Orleans, The George Eastman House, and Fortune 500 companies such as Hewlett Packard, Google, and Apple Inc., as well as colleges and museums. He is actor Orlando Bloom’s cousin…
    In recent years, Copeland has focused his work on climate change. His prints have appeared in exhibitions including the United Nations (Solo Show, 2007), the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Peabody Essex Museum as well as the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, among others…
    Copeland writes for Men’s Journal and Huffington Post. He has made keynote addresses at the United Nations, The Planet Workshops…
    Copeland has been featured on TV and radio including on Larry King, CBS, NPR, Air America and Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Reality.
    He is also on the Board of Directors for Global Green… ETC
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Copeland

    62

  • #
    john karajas

    Boy, do I remember the 1956 heatwave (check those graphs above). Dad and Mum had a market garden in, what was then, bushland out at Balcatta (now the Perth suburb of Hamersley) in those days. No electricity, no running water. The nights were so hot: we took out our bedding and slept out on the lawn. Dad used to load us up into the Thames truck and drive us over to Granny’s Pool at North Beach of an evening so that we could cool off.

    Perth has been having humdinger heat waves in February as long as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to be on the Jubilee off-shore rig drilling off Rottnest during the 1969 heat wave. We were getting cooling afternoon sea breezes and we could look over to Cottesloe and Fremantle and see the heat shimmer.

    120

    • #

      No electricity and no running water in Balcatta in 1956? Wow.

      My father tells me they were still getting bread delivered by a horse and cart in Maylands then (it was about when it ended). The baker reckoned the horse was better than a truck. He could whistle and it would pull the cart to meet him further up the road. This is one from a different part of Perth. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-28/millers-bakery-museum-palmyra/5629854

      110

      • #
        Bruce J

        We had water and electricity in Inglewood (just up the road from Maylands – used to ride bikes to the river in Maylands) well before then, and the bread and milk were delivered in Ford Thames vans by 1956 – think the horse and carts ended about 1952. Sexton Rd wasn’t paved until about then. Was only a couple of years later that trams stopped running in Beaufort St. Gawd, makes you feel old!

        70

        • #
          Raven

          When I moved to Melbourne (Heidelberg) in 1980 and the milko had a horse and cart.
          I couldn’t believe it . . was woken up on my first morning by the clippity clop. The milko would run back and forth to the cart and the horse would just move along as required.

          30

      • #

        My parents remember electricity being delivered by horse. They did get bread through the tap though and you don’t see people wanting that anymore.

        82

        • #

          My parents remember electricity being delivered by horse. They did get bread through the tap though and you don’t see people wanting that anymore.

          Hey, wait a minute. I thought that The Greens were only a recent thing!

          Tony.

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          • #
            Rollo

            Perhaps we will get to the stage where the daily allowance of recharged lithium ion batteries will be delivered by horse. Please don’t give them ideas!

            50

            • #
              Andrew McRae

              Then PETA and the RSPCA will have that banned too because the risk of occasional spontaneous LiPO battery explosions endangers the horse.

              I’m giving them ideas, aren’t I.

              40

            • #
              The Backslider

              Perhaps This is how Elon Musk will distribute all of his solar power from Utah to all the other states?

              40

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            “I thought that The Greens were only a recent thing!”

            True Tony.

            In those days it was known as the communist party.

            KK

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          My parents remember electricity being delivered by horse.

          That would have be a carriageless horse, I presume.

          I can remember milk being delivered on electric trucks. They called them “Milk Floats”, which was strange, for when one drove off a bridge and fell in the river, it certainly didn’t float, nor did the milk, come to think on it.

          80

        • #
          john karajas

          Yuk, yuk! This horse-delivered electricity thing would have been a sight to see. I do remember horse-drawn delivery of ice in Northbridge, though. It was for the ice chest.

          30

        • #
          • #
            King Geo

            Yes I remember the tiger (Esso), then we had the gull (a Rae of sunshine – some of you might get this) and now we have the puma. What comes next? The Carnaby Cockatoo just to drive the Greens mad.

            00

          • #
            Geoff Sherrington

            Mike,
            I gave up the tiger in the tank when I found a female lion on the back seat.
            Geoff.
            I

            00

        • #
          ianl8888

          Monty Python’s Life of Brian did it much better

          30

          • #
            Gee Aye

            I think you are confused but RB below is not. Besides, accepting that all humour has antecedents does not mean it is funny to point them out. In fact the opposite is mostly true.

            20

        • #
          RB

          Arrh, you ‘ere lucky Gi Ayerh.

          My Uncle still had a dunny man come over and pick up his dunny can every so often in the late 70’s. I so disliked doing number twos at his place. Mum eventually got him (bachelor still) to put in a septic tank (rural area).

          31

          • #
            Geoff Sherrington

            RB,
            We had the back yard loo with newspaper on a nail (predicting its best use) and the can man with horse coming along the dunny lane behind the yards. They sometimes put bunches of bananas in the enclosed space between the cans so they would ripen faster.
            The first home I remember CA. 1945 had 2 rooms. We 3 brothers slept in the kitchen, the oldies in the other room. Mosquito nets and coils. Shower in the enclosure under the rain water tank. Washing clothes in a copper over a wood fire – guess who had to collect and cut the wood. Washing hung out on a wire line between two trees, propped up wih a long, forked stick. Mum stirred the clothes with the copper stick that became furry after a while, a good way to minimise bruises from this preferred punishment device.
            Meat in a mesh safe, one delivery from horse cart weekly. They unhitched this big horse one day when I was 5 and sat me on it, a long way up. Its first action was to walk me under the clothes line, just at neck height. Wise horse 1, broken arm zero – and no antibiotics yet for the cuts and scratches. Tonsils & adenoids out on the kitchen table, corn flakes for breakfast next day. Does this cloth smell of chloroform?

            This was as close as I came to the modern Green Utopia.
            Geoff.

            20

    • #

      1968/69 was my first summer in Australia.

      Fortunately in Safety Bay, not far from the beach.

      Had my first lessons in coping with climate change. 😉

      Primary school teacher taught us kids why and when to open/close blinds and windows to keep comfortable on just about any day. Only once had a lesson in on the lawn in the shade of trees on the perimeter of the playground because it got too hot inside.

      90

  • #
    Analitik

    In the spirit of pat, OT but interesting (as in “how did the MSM here not report this?”)

    From early November last year

    Under the latest order issued by authorities in Tamil Nadu where Greenpeace is registered, the government said it had found that the organisation had violated the provisions of law by engaging in fraudulent dealings

    India Orders Greenpeace to Shut Down Over Fraud

    150

    • #
      el gordo

      The story has been doing the rounds for a year and the financial upset, which saw their bank accounts frozen, was probably only an Indian Secret Service trick to eradicate Greenpeace from the subcontinent. It was a cultural misunderstanding.

      ‘Greenpeace has been charged with obstructing development activities in India by the Government of India in 2013 after intelligence Bureau inputs. Greenpeace India is charged with undertaking protests against thermal power, nuclear power, coal and aluminium mining across India. GreenPeace has also been charged with promoting Solar energy equipment of US based Zemlin Surface Optical Corporation especially in Bihar.’

      wiki

      40

      • #
        Analitik

        Wrong

        This is a new story of an action taken by the Indian government last November – read the linked article

        Here’s a Reuters article of Greenpeace appealing against the government order
        Greenpeace India to appeal against order to close over alleged fraud

        40

        • #
          el gordo

          Latest Nooze (Jan 2016)

          ‘Greenpeace, the environmental group, won an important victory in India on Tuesday, as the Delhi High Court ordered the government of Narendra Modi, prime minister, to release Rs18m in foreign contributions to its Indian branch.

          ‘In June, New Delhi blocked incoming foreign contributions to Greenpeace India, just after a leaked intelligence bureau report accused the group, and a clutch of other non-governmental organisations, of stalling India’s growth by fomenting dissent to large industrial projects.’

          30

  • #
    Ursus Augustus

    As an expat Perth boy, born mid fifties, I personally remember all those 4, 5 and 6 day haetwaves through the 60s in particular. Sleeping outside on the back lawn, Cottesloe and every other beach covered in people from the eastern suburbs sleeping out for the night.

    And then there is the aspect that it is just a figment of the UHI effect by which the city has simply got hotter and hotter due to all the extra concrete and bitumen.

    What a load of utter crap is this heat wave hysteria. What a complete waste of time getting one’s information from the msm. Might as well eat from a toilet.

    152

    • #
      mc

      Ursus Augustus

      What a complete waste of time getting one’s information from the msm. Might as well eat from a toilet.

      What’s for dinner tonight mom?

      This should cheer you up darl; a nice bowl of hot steaming…

      Oh mar…um, not again; that’s 3 nights in a row! My stomach can’t handle any more of this; can’t I have a sardine and condensed milk sandwich or something, this MSM stuff makes me want to clean my mouth out with dad’s dirty socks.

      50

  • #

    If I may make an observation here, we moved to Queensland from Mexico Victoria in late 1960. I was the eldest of five children and I was 9 at the time.

    Our parents would watch the ABC News regularly every night. My sister and I were allowed to also watch as our bedtime was now 8.00PM.

    We (my sister and I) were fascinated by the Weather Reports, (the last couple of minutes of the News even then, and it was considered comprehensive even then in 1960) because, coming from a cooler climate, we were astonished that every Summer night, and even earlier and later than Summer, there was always some town in Queensland which had a maximum higher than 100 degrees, and each night the Report would give the highest maximum in the State. We would guess on the number for that night and the place name, as those place names were always so different, Urandangie, Cunnamulla, and a few others of strange sounding names, and usually only the same five or six of those towns, so the guess was from a smallish base as was the number as well.

    Back in 1960, virtually every night, the temperature was around 105 degrees give or take a couple of degrees, and that’s 40C+.

    Now scroll forward to 2016. The ABC weather report now shows temperatures for 43 places in Queensland, and they are always sweltering, extreme, and every other adjective they can find, and yet they are still only around that 40C mark give or take.

    Oddly, they are all around the same as they were in 1960 when we first started taking notice. Just that now, they take the numbers from more places. It was most probably the same in 1960, only they reported from such a smaller base of towns. That heat is the same now as it was then, only now it is somehow scarier.

    Tony.

    192

    • #
      Yonniestone

      only now it is somehow scarier.

      That’s because a diversity unicorn demands climate justice and sustainability!

      81

    • #
      Gobsmacked Greg

      Tony ,I was amazed to hear an esteemed weather presenter claim Perth was to have a scorching 32c day!Scorching?Here north of Melbourne we where commenting on how little use the pool has had in the past month or more.

      72

      • #
        Ursus Augustus

        Here in Tassie while our bushfires are still burning what happened? ….

        It snowed!

        Mid February, our hottest and most reliably summer month… we are back under the full doona again.

        The one I just love these days is the ABC maps where 30˚ is the level at which it is RED, RED, RED. I think 40˚ is PURPLE. The whole thing just looks so ALARMING so we will ALWAYS TURN TO THE ABC TO GET OUR DOSE OF AGW ADRENALIN AND DAILY TEMPERATURE PHOBIA TOP UP.

        What we are really seeing is the breakup of the great gondwana of the msm into the archipeligo of sites like Jo’s and Anthony’s etc where you can actually be informed instead of hunted for clickbait by moralising megafauna.

        92

  • #
    pat

    wasn’t something similar being planned in Australia?

    18 Feb: UK Telegraph: Rhiannon Bury: Fifth of commercial buildings face penalties for not meeting new government energy standards, research finds
    Property owners must improve their buildings by 2018 or risk being barred from letting them
    The Government’s Energy Act, which was passed in the last Parliament, includes rules that mean from 2018 it will be unlawful to rent out a business property which fails to meet the minimum energy efficiency standard – an “E” rating.
    Research by property agent Cushman & Wakefield found that almost 20pc of commercial property buildings currently fall into the “F” or “G” categories – meaning they will need to make improvements before the new rules come into force…
    A further 19pc are rated “E” and sit just above what will be the legal cut off. In total, nearly 40pc of all properties could face a significant performance risk, the research found…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/12161810/Fifth-of-commercial-buildings-face-penalties-for-not-meeting-new-government-energy-standards-research-finds.html

    50

    • #
      ScotsmaninUtah

      Pat this is a great post 😀

      Personally I would like to see half of the buildings in England demolished , they are old and very small …
      okay for mice to live in , but they have no place in the modern world
      Prince Charles wants to see every building preserved so that perhaps he can be reminded of the olden days of Monarcist dominance.

      The housing crisis in the UK is a testament to poor planning and lack of vision.

      At least in Australia people are not forced to buy cupboards to live in.

      00

  • #
    el gordo

    SARAH PERKINS-KIRKPATRICK (a very important climatologist being interviewed by the ABC.)

    ‘In 2014, many of you might find it hard to believe that we actually had a heatwave during May.

    ‘May is typically of course when we’re going into winter, but this heatwave was averaging about 25, 26 degrees across most of the country, and that particular even was 25 times more likely due to climate change.’

    ——

    Its what the English call a heatwave, but in fact its an Indian Summer down under. Linking it to global warming is pathetic, some people have no shame.

    131

  • #
    pat

    following is attributed at the bottom to:

    Dr. Sander van der Linden is a social-psychologist based in Princeton University’s Department of Psychology with joint appointments in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
    Dr. Edward Maibach is a professor at George Mason University and director of Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication.
    Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz is a research scientist at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

    18 Feb: US News & World Report Knowledge Bank Blog: Climate Change’s Unseen Consensus
    An alarming number of teachers aren’t aware of the consensus on human-caused climate change and teach instead a false debate
    In the history of science, there have been few instances in which almost all experts in a particular field were in complete agreement. Climate change is one of those instances. Nearly two decades of research has converged on the following fact: Over 97 percent of climate scientists have independently concluded that human-caused global warming is happening…
    In a new study published in Science magazine last week, Eric Plutzer and colleagues report a finding that should alarm the nation: Only 30 percent of middle-school and 45 percent of high-school science teachers in the U.S. are aware of the fact that nearly all climate scientists are convinced that global warming is caused mostly by human activities.
    Here’s the kicker…
    Political ideology plays an important role in how teachers present the evidence on climate change. Importantly, our research has shown that one of the few facts that speaks to both conservatives and liberals in a powerful way is information about the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. In our experiments, we repeatedly find that conservatives are especially receptive to information about the consensus…
    We urge secondary school science teachers to set the record straight by educating their students about the overwhelming degree of scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Teaching this simple fact will help groom the next generation of American leaders to make decisions based on sound science – decisions that are in the best interest of the United States, other nations and our entire planet, including the crucial life support systems on which we all depend.
    http://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2016-02-18/teachers-need-to-communicate-the-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change

    50

  • #
    pat

    READ ALL:

    18 Feb: Intellectual Property Watch: Catherine Saez: Climate Change Panel Seeks To Improve Communication, Open Doors To Private Sector
    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seeks to improve its communication to promote its reports, its chair said at a briefing yesterday. Working on its next assessment report expected to be released in five or six years, the IPCC seeks to increase participation of the private sector as a major stakeholders upon which depends the investment to find solutions to climate change he said.
    Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, said in a 17 February briefing that the IPCC wants to be more policy-relevant, to improve its communication capabilities about its products, focus on solutions to tackle climate change, and increase the participation of the private sector…
    “The policy community is our primary audience that is the reason why our key product, Summary for Policy Makers [pdf], has that specific name,” Lee said. But the IPCC realised that there is a great number of decision makers in other layers of society. One of those important stakeholders and decision-makers is the private sector and businesses…
    Solutions to climate change challenges depend upon how financial resources and related resources will be allocated by the private sector, he said, the business industry and the finance sector…
    According to the IPCC, the next session is expected to take place in Nairobi on 11-13 April, “when the Panel will discuss which Special Reports to undertake in the coming years and start work on the Sixth Assessment Report.”…
    Asked about whether IP rights are considered by the IPCC when it comes to green innovations to tackle climate change, Lee said IP rights are a very important element in policy decisions…
    http://www.ip-watch.org/2016/02/18/climate-change-panel-seeks-to-improve-communication-open-doors-to-private-sector/

    20

  • #
    pat

    lol.

    VIDEOS: 19 Feb: WKYC-TV: Tom Beres: Environmental activist/donor Steyer talks climate change
    CLEVELAND — Ohioans overwhelmingly support transitioning to using 50 percent clean energy by 2030 to deal with climate change, according to a just-released poll..
    More than 80 percent of poll respondents back the idea. That includes a majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
    The poll was done by Ansalone, Liszt Grove for the group ***NextGen Climate.
    The group is the advocacy organization backed by California billionaire activist Tom Steyer…
    Steyer was in Cleveland Thursday for a panel discussion on climate change’s impact..
    “The only reason we’re doing this is…we believe it’s the right thing to do, ” he said…
    Some observers call him the flip side of the Koch brothers.
    He disagrees with the comparison saying he is not advocating for policies that benefit him financially.
    “We have no personal gain,” he stressed…
    Steyer came to WKYC Channel 3 for a one-on-one interview with WKYC Senior Political Correspondent Tom Beres. The interview can be watched in the attached excerpts…
    http://www.wkyc.com/tech/science/environment/environmental-activistdonor-steyer-talks-climate-change/47268139

    40

    • #
      Mari

      Reply to Pat, # 28 – I live in the Cleveland, Ohio area, and most people I know think AGW, or W at all, is bunk. There are a few vocal and rabid groups/individuals screaming we’ll all die soon, but most people here are too busy earning a living, raising families, and trying to stay warm to worry about being cooked at some random future date. Steyer is wasting his time trying to get money, or even attention, from the vast majority of WKYC viewers.

      72

  • #
    pat

    craving “certainty”:

    19 Feb: SMH: Peter Hannam: What the CSIRO job cuts mean for STEM students
    Annette Hirsch, a budding science star, had barely begun unpacking after arriving to take up a prestigious post-doctoral research position at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, when news of deep cuts to CSIRO’s climate science broke.
    “It was quite a shock,” Dr Hirsch, who left Australia with her PhD in numerical modelling from the University of NSW at Christmas after being co-supervised by “a guru” in the field at CSIRO.
    “A lot of the people who are at CSIRO have so much knowledge, and are incredibly talented scientists – it would be sad to lose that resource or that opportunity,” she said…
    Fresh from 10 years of university study that has already generated work published in five international papers, Dr Hirsch is concerned the CSIRO cuts will limit the opportunities that might eventually lure her back to Australia.
    “Now you can see that even in places like CSIRO, you’re not safe,” the 30-year-old said. “It’s very hard to make these long-term plans with so much uncertainty around.”…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/what-the-csiro-job-cuts-mean-for-stem-students-20160218-gmxgaf.html

    30

    • #
      AndyG55

      ” Dr Hirsch is concerned the CSIRO cuts will limit the opportunities ”

      Not in the least..

      It will allow her to escape from the AGW fold and do something that might actually be USEFUL !!

      63

  • #
    pat

    18 Feb: Hobart Mercury: Indi Hodgson-Johnston: Hobart a natural home for climate and marine science
    (Indi Hodgson-Johnston is a lecturer, researcher and tutor at the University of Tasmania. She is doing a PhD in Antarctic law)
    Hobart’s Antarctic, ocean and climate science industry employs about 1800 people. The Australian Antarctic Division, the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and Australian Maritime College, CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere flagship, are the pillars of the Antarctic-related organisations in Hobart.
    They work with the Bureau of Meteorology, the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, the Antarctic Gateway Partnership, the Integrated Marine Observing System, and many more. Most of these live with a constant threat of budget cuts from government, or short-term grants and funding of about five years…
    Hobart scientists are highly skilled, highly regarded and on the frontline of global climate and ocean modelling. Their science advises governments, communities and the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. It tells us of El Nino’s potential impact, of ocean acidification, of the shifting of species, of melting glaciers and ice sheets, and of sea-level rises. It tells us of bushfire risks or aquaculture solutions for food security.
    This knowledge is passed to a community of University of Tasmania-based international, interdisciplinary postgraduate and undergraduate students, who will be the next generation of scientists, policymakers and law-makers…
    We don’t know yet how many CSIRO jobs will go, but even half the projected 65 climate science jobs from Hobart would mean 33 skilled workers leaving, along with their families, knowledge, influence and support.
    Tasmania needs more scientists and more students striving to be just like them. Hobart attracts the brightest in this field. These CSIRO job cuts may lead to a range shift away from the island.
    http://www.themercury.com.au/news/opinion/hobart-a-natural-home-for-climate-and-marine-science/news-story/cefdfe2de8bf1b095213c66214848749

    30

  • #
    sophocles

    Sounds like a great SmartPhone App: Heatwave Bingo! Download the App Now! Play it at work, Play it at home, Play it in the car! The whole family can … win.

    And think of the spin-offs … Warmest Year Evah,(with extended betting), Carbon Roulette, Sea Level Rise Surfing, … 🙂

    50

  • #
    pat

    thousands more CAGW bureaucrats on the way:

    18 Feb: ThomsonReutersFoundation: Help at hand for countries desperately seeking climate cash
    Bangkok: Several big international funds, including the U.N. Green Climate Fund, are trying to dole out billions of dollars to countries and communities to help them tackle climate change by adapting to extreme weather and adopting renewable energy.
    But most government officials and smaller institutions simply do not know how to access this money, experts say. Meeting the funds’ conditions is often laborious.
    “There’s lots of money out there for climate change, but countries are having real difficulty in accessing it,” said Peter King, Bangkok-based senior policy adviser for the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)…
    High standards are needed to ensure the money is spent well and in line with funds’ policies on gender equality, for example…
    The GCF has what it calls a “readiness” programme, with $30 million available to help countries prepare to access its funding. So far 97 requests for support have been received, and 43 approved.
    But when it comes to actual accreditation, of the 20 agencies that have the green light so far, the majority are regional, international and U.N. organisations…
    So now climate experts are planning to walk officials through proposals, with mentors, in a bid to secure financing…
    King, who also leads USAID’s Asia-Pacific efforts on climate adaptation funding, is working on a proposal for a $20 million five-year programme to train 5,000 people to prepare high-quality projects to reduce emissions and adapt to climate shifts…
    (Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change.)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/climatechange-asia-funding-idUSL3N15W3SZ

    41

    • #
      Raven

      The GCF has what it calls a “readiness” programme, with $30 million available to help countries prepare to access its funding.…

      King, who also leads USAID’s Asia-Pacific efforts on climate adaptation funding, is working on a proposal for a $20 million five-year programme to train 5,000 people to prepare high-quality projects to reduce emissions and adapt to climate shifts….

      There goes $50 million before anyone even sits down at a desk.

      40

      • #
        Mike

        Heres the thing……..
        “vid THE INTERNATIONAL FILM THE ESSENCE OF BANKING TO CREATE PERPETUAL DEBT ”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiN1xHaNDJ0

        to add insult to the injury, the very debt (money/fiat) is created out of thin air by private central banks. Or in other words, the money to fund a loan does not exist as collateral until the debt is created. ie: the bank come to the table without any money in its pocket, only the power to print the money out of thin air.

        There are plenty of info these days on how money is created, and how it is destroyed when the principal of the loan is re-payed. More than 99% of all money in existence at any one time is created out of debt.

        This upsets you, no??

        “The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are …”
        http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity

        “Money As Debt 1: what money is & why we are bankers’ slaves”
        https://youtu.be/rC720Cl3N-0?t=48

        30

  • #
    pat

    18 Feb: The Daily Collegian: Eban Goodstein discusses actions students can take to change future
    by Antonio Jaramillo
    With the U.S. Supreme Court putting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan on hold and the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, Penn State held a “Climate Policy Post-Paris: Next Steps for a Clean Energy Future” discussion to explain the actions students can take to change the future.
    Led by Eban Goodstein, director of graduate programs in sustainability at Bard College, the discussion was held yesterday in Foster Auditorium.
    “Eban is a national figure in sustainability and higher education, so it’s a great honor to hear what he has to say,” Susannah Barson, director of academic programs at the Sustainability Institute, said…
    “I hope by the time you leave, you’re going to be persuaded that there is nothing more important to talk about than climate policy,” Goodstein said.
    The three major impacts of a warming planet include: more floods, more droughts and sea-level rising, Goodstein said.
    “We’ve been wrapping the planet in a thicker blanket of carbon dioxide, so how do we keep temperature from rising?” Goodstein said…
    “The Paris agreement changed the future,” Goodstein said…
    It was not until last week, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided to put Obama’s and the EPA’s Clean Power plan on hold that halted the decision that Obama had stated in the Paris agreement back in December.
    Now with the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the upcoming election will determine if the Paris talk will move forward, Goodstein said.
    “The clock is running out for climate action,” Goodstein said. “We have to reimagine the future, change the rules and transform the game.”
    Sponsored by Penn State’s Sustainability Institute, Penn State University Libraries, Penn State Institutes of Energy and Environment and Rock Ethics Institute, the discussion was also being webcast to students at other schools…
    http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_1af32e3c-d5c0-11e5-bc1e-277e47285306.html

    20

  • #
    pat

    Eban from the Collegian article:

    11 Feb: TriplePundit: Eban Goodstein: The Missing Voice for SCOTUS on Climate: Students
    In an extraordinary move, the Supreme Court granted a stay that puts a halt to Clean Power Plan implementation until legal challenges to particular features of the plan are heard and settled, probably by SCOTUS itself later this year. The U.S. commitment made in Paris is now off the rails — at least temporarily…
    But there was one key stakeholder from whom the court did not hear, a group that did not get to present oral arguments: the young people who will actually be around in 2050 to experience the impacts of our action, or inaction, today.
    Can students gain a voice to change their climate future? A key opportunity is the Power Dialog. The week of April 4, in more than 30 state capitols across the country, thousands of college and high-school students will meet in face-to-face dialogue with the officials who are in charge of planning pollution cuts in their states. Students will have a chance to learn about what their states are proposing — including the now-stalled Clean Power Plan — and to pose questions like:…READ ON
    The Power Dialog, sponsored by the Center for Environmental Policy at Bard College, is not a lobbying or advocacy event…(LOL)…
    http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/02/missing-voice-scotus-climate-students/

    Wikipedia: Eban Goodstein
    Eban Goodstein (born 1960) is an economist, author, and public educator who directs both the Center for Environmental Policy and the MBA in Sustainability at Bard College. He is known for organizing national educational initiatives on climate change, which have engaged thousands of schools and universities, civic institutions, faith groups, and community organizations in solutions-driven dialogue…
    At Bard CEP, Goodstein launched one of the nation’s first MS in Climate Science and Policy degree offerings. In 2012, with the support of Hunter Lovins, Goodstein also founded Bard’s MBA in Sustainability — one of a handful of programs globally that fully integrates sustainability into a core graduate business curriculum…
    In 1999, Goodstein founded the Green House Network, an organization dedicated to supporting the clean energy movement…
    Between 2000 and 2004, Goodstein worked with Matthew Follett to produce the Race to Stop Global Warming, a 10K non-competitive footrace that involved thousands of runners and their families in eight cities across the United States. These efforts earned the Green House Network the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s “Climate Saver’s Award”…
    In the winter of 2006, a rising sense of personal urgency about the need for action led Goodstein to expand the scale of his work, and launch the first of the national teach-in initiatives, Focus the Nation. Goodstein, with his wife and the project Communications Director, Chungin Chung, spent eighteen months traveling across the country, speaking and organizing on over 150 campuses. In January 2008, over 1900 universities, schools, and civic groups nationwide participated in what amounted to one of the largest teach-in in U.S. history, involving over a million people in an event designed to educated and engage Americans in a discussion of global warming solutions. Goodstein and Chung organized a second teach-in in 2009…
    His most recent book is Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eban_Goodstein

    10

  • #
    Dave

    Amazing

    1956 a Year to Remember
    1. Duke of Edinburgh 1:45 minutes Temperatures 107 Deg F
    2. 100’s Killer Whales commit suicide North of Newcastle 5:16 min
    3. Cyclone in Cairns Worst in 30 years 5:39 min
    4. Massive Murray River Flood 6:03 min
    5. Snow Blizzard on Mount Kosciuszko Avalanche 6:29min

    Lucky Climate Change wasn’t around then

    CO2 levels less than 310 ppm yet all these CAGW catastrophic events in one year!

    Why?

    Because its natural and a cycle!

    121

    • #
      toorightmate

      Dave,
      You ask “Why”.
      Simple. We were burning coal like it was going out of fashion that year.
      We then eased up on burning coal to:
      reduce the temperature of planet Earth,
      we saved untold trillions of whales,
      cyclones became too scared to come anywhere near us,
      no river in Australia has flooded since AND
      Kosciuszko is now permanently covered in snow.
      We saved the planet old mate.
      We are worthy Of No Bell prizes.

      71

  • #
    pat

    18 Feb: TheCornellReview: Casey Breznick: Cornell ‘Climate Action Plan Rally’ a Dud, Students Complain of Cold and Retreat Into Fossil Fuel-Heated Building
    A handful of student protesters gathered on Ho Plaza Thursday afternoon to denounce Cornell’s policy reversal on the Climate Action Plan to achieve campus “carbon neutrality” by 2035.
    The student protesters, numbering about 25, took turns speaking about why they disagree with Garrett’s position. Then then went into various chants and slogans, including “Cornell, step off it! People over profit!” and “Enough of Cornell’s phony solutions! Support the SA’s resolution!” …
    Earlier in the month, the Cornell Sun reported Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett opposes the 2035 plan, and said, “For me, the more important thing is the research and creative work and education that goes on and not thinking about some arbitrary year date that we really haven’t studied with respect with how feasible it is for us to reach that.”…
    Throughout the outside portion of the mobilization, several of the protest leaders commented about the cold temperature, which stood at 19 degrees Fahrenheit at the time with a “feels like” temperature of 10 degrees. After about ten minutes of speeches and chanting, they quickly filed into Willard Straight Hall, where the SA meets, which is coincidentally heated by burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
    http://www.thecornellreview.org/cornell-climate-action-plan-rally-a-dud-students-complain-of-cold-and-retreat-into-fossil-fuel-heated-building/

    60

  • #
    tom0mason

    Like Nostrodamus, BOM should also be recognized for what they do well and not their flaky predictions,…

    Now what is BOM good at …?

    50

  • #

    Speaking of gambling, the latest AEMO/ElectraNet (PDF) Update to Renewable Energy Integration in South Australia says:

    As a result of this analysis, AEMO’s modelling of system performance does not consider any inertial response from the current fleet of wind turbines.

    Nothing yet on stabilising “inertia” provided by rooftop PV systems. They may need electron microscopes to find it. 😉

    There’s more interesting stuff in the report for those not frightened off by the jargon and alphabet soup of abbreviations.

    Alan Moran writes more on SA’s electrical gamble.

    50

  • #
    Harry Twinotter

    I agree, media hype is not helpful.

    I did not see any hype from the Australian BOM. Their new heat wave index system will be useful to track trends in heat waves over the decades.

    312

  • #
    Ron Cook

    With apologies to Irving Berlin

    We’re having a heat wave,
    A tropical heat wave,
    The temperature’s rising,
    It isn’t surprising,
    GAIA certainly can can-can.

    GAIA started a heat wave
    By letting her seat wave
    In such a way that
    The ALARMISTS say that
    She certainly can can-can.

    Gee, her anatomy
    Makes the mercury
    Jump to ninety-three.

    We’re having a heat wave,
    A tropical heat wave,
    The way that GAIA moves
    That thermometer proves
    That she certainly can can-can.

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    Mike

    Bingo!! Another global warning.

    “US Oil Rig Count Collapses At Fastest Rate In A Year
    Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/19/2016 13:11

    “Rig counts dropped for the 9th straight week but for the 3rd week in a row, US oil rig counts dropped heavily, down 26 this week after -28, and -31 in the last 2 weeks. The 85 rig drop is a 17% plunge over 3 weeks – the fastest pace since Feb 2015, and 2nd fastest since Feb 2009.”

    Prior to this, the oil rig count dropped well over 50% in a single year.

    Or…..1600 oil rigs 2014….around 400 left now

    And of course fracking died a swift death……………………. Another BINGO!!!!

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    Manfred

    Leader of U.N. climate deal steps down

    Bingo – She’s gone!

    The Washington Examiner writes:

    The United Nations official who led December’s climate change deal in Paris announced her departure on Friday.

    Christiana Figueres, the global body’s executive secretary on climate change, sent a letter announcing she will not seek another term as lead climate negotiator when her term expires in July.

    Simply ‘moving on’ or just the first rat to leave a sinking ship?

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    Walter Starck

    A trend line in the 4, 5 and 6 day graphs would indicate a steep decline.

    21

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  • #
  • #
    Sunray

    Thank you Jo, I look forward, probably in vain, to the day when our Chief Legal Officers start charging the CEO’s etc of the BOM with fraud.

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    Fred

    In relation to this article, and one linked, discussing AWS versus liquid-in-glass thermometers: BoM continue to take LIG temps at 0900 and 1500 as well as LIG max and min at manned stations. My experience with mercurial max thermometers is that they consistently read lower TMax than AWS sensors. Both temps are written in the station log so differences over time would be known for each station, and both LIG and AWS sensor changes should be noted in station files. BoM is in the process of de-staffing almost all field stations manned by trained observers, some having manual input supplied by local “contractors” who seem unwilling or unable to read thermometers and evaporation pan measures correctly. I am not in the least surprised that there would be a “step change” in TMax readings once electronic sensors became the standard.

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    pat

    yes, it has been a good news week…

    19 Feb: BBC: Matt McGrath: UN climate chief to step down
    Her contribution to the successful outcome of the talks in Paris was praised by climate economist Lord Stern.
    “Christiana’s contribution to international climate negotiations over the [past] six years has been really extraordinary,” he said…
    “Christiana is one of the great leaders of our time. She no doubt has much more to contribute in the coming years. The challenge for everyone is to build on her achievements, and I am sure she will be part of that.”
    Ms Figueres has announced her decision to stand down in the same week as the President of the Paris conference, Laurent Fabius, announced he was stepping aside from that role…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35612559

    19 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Pashley: Christiana Figueres to leave UN climate change role
    But in a Ted Talk delivered in Vancouver this week (LINK) the mother of two said she decided after that downbeat start a new, consensual approach was needed to deliver a deal.
    “Impossible is not a fact, it’s an attitude,” she said. “And I decided, right then and there, that I was going to change my attitude, and I was going to help the world change its attitude on climate change.”
    In a sign of her success, the Bonn-based position will be promoted to ‘under-secretary general’, on par with the heads of the UN Environment Programme and UN Development Programme.
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/02/19/christiana-figueres-to-leave-un-climate-change-role/

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    pat

    19 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Pashley: Weekly wrap: Figueres and Fabius to leave in UN climate talks exodus
    It leaves the body on an unsteady footing going into the next round of annual talks in Marrakech. Paris was a breakthrough but much remains to be ironed out, Figueres’ predecessor Yvo de Boer wrote in Climate Home this week.
    “Looking ahead, despite all the achievements at COP21, there needs to be a stronger sense of honesty, objectivity and reality. The Paris outcomes remind me of Neil Armstrong when he stepped onto the surface of the Moon,” said de Boer.
    The outcomes of Paris are almost the reverse of his famous line, “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” COP21 ended with an agreement and achieved a political breakthrough, but it was a small step for mankind because the commitments agreed in Paris are modest from the perspective of environmental challenges…
    ***Late Friday we also learnt the executive director of the Green Climate Fund, Hela Cheikhrouhou, plans to stand down in September at the end of her three-year term…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/02/19/weekly-wrap-figueres-and-fabius-to-leave-in-un-climate-talks-exodus/

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    pat

    18 Feb: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Centrica urges policy overhaul as it warns of ‘looming gap’ in UK energy supplies
    Britain’s biggest energy supplier says Government must make significant changes to its capacity market, which is supposed to keep the lights on
    Ministers must make “significant changes” to their capacity market, which pays power stations to guarantee their availability, in order to push the subsidy high enough to secure investment in new gas plants, it said.
    The current scheme overestimates how much wind power may be available, given there will be “zero” when the wind doesn’t blow, and procures insufficient reliable power plant capacity, the energy giant said…
    As a result, “there is a looming gap for 2018-19 winter period”, Mark Hanafin, head of Centrica’s energy production business, said…
    More capacity needed to be secured further in advance, especially as the scheme assumed Britain’s wind farms would produce 15pc of their capacity. “That’s fine if the wind is blowing. If the wind’s not blowing, it’s not 15pc, it’s zero,” he said…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/12163880/Centrica-urges-policy-overhaul-as-it-warns-of-looming-gap-in-UK-energy-supplies.html

    5 Feb: Grimsby Telegraph: Grimsby’s first offshore wind farms sold in £423m deal as Centrica sells up
    Investor consortium UK Green Investment Bank Offshore Wind Fund and BlackRock has swooped…
    This transaction also marks the first time that an operating offshore wind farm has been 100 per cent owned by non-utility investors…
    BlackRock’s infrastructure business has $8.3 billion in investment and committed capital, including more than $2 billion in equity capital focused on investment in renewable power projects via four funds and associated co-investment programmes. It currently owns and manages 66 wind and solar projects in Europe and North America on behalf of its clients.
    Rory O’Connor, managing director, said: “This landmark transaction demonstrates BlackRock’s significant investment programme in the UK renewables sector. For investors, the sector can provide opportunities for less correlated, inflation-linked, long-duration income and attractive risk-adjusted returns.”
    http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/Grimsby-s-offshore-wind-farms-sold-423m-deal/story-28677811-detail/story.html

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    pat

    19 Feb: Politico: Eric Wolff: Green cred a tough sell in Pennsylvania Senate race
    (With help from Alex Guillen, Darren Goode, Annie Snider, Darius Dixon, and Anca Gurzu)
    Katie McGinty, the Democratic establishment’s pick to try and nab Pennsylvania’s Senate seat form Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, thought her long environmental record would be a strength in her campaign.
    Instead, as POLITICO’s Kevin Robillard reports, she’s managed to be both too green and not green enough. Republicans are focusing on McGinty’s time in the private sector, highlighting her time on the board of power provider NRG Energy. The company invested heavily in renewables while she was there, but saw its stock price collapse last year, leading to the resignation of its CEO. Democrats, meanwhile, are criticizing McGinty’s support for fracking, a hot-button issue for progressives this year…
    McGinty: “The question is: Do you have a track record of fighting for the environment? And I’m the only person in the race with that track record.”…PLUS MORE CAGW NEWS INCLUDING “IEA WARNS LOW PRICES UNDERMINE GREEN ENERGY”…
    http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/02/pro-morning-energy-wolff-212792

    ***link added for report, as one provided by IEA didn’t work for me:

    18 Feb: IEA: Re-powering Markets: Market design and regulation during the transition to low-carbon power systems
    To facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy, electricity markets will need to be “re-powered”: older market frameworks must be replaced with ones suitable for decarbonisation while ensuring a secure electricity supply. Market rules need to be modernised and better matched with low-carbon policies, while keeping the same overall market architecture…
    Changes can be as limited as increasing the temporal or geographical resolution of existing markets or putting a price on scarcity, or as extensive as creating short-term markets and incorporating policies to increase renewables and reduce carbon emissions as part of a consistent market framework.
    Re-Powering Markets brings together today’s best practices in new electricity market design and details the most effective and efficient ways for re-powering electricity markets to address the 21st century challenges of transitioning to low-carbon electricity.
    ***(LINK PDF 11 pages) https://www.iea.org/media/presentations/160218_RepoweringMarkets_slides.pdf
    http://www.iea.org/topics/electricity/publications/re-poweringmarkets/

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    pat

    ***ABC, why not write “member of the IPCC team that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize”?

    20 Feb: ABC: Angela Ross: Renowned CSIRO scientist Dr John Church speaks out against decision to dump climate modelling
    But, with more than 100 jobs in Hobart, Melbourne and Canberra to be scrapped, Dr Church, one of the CSIRO’S most renowned researchers, has stepped up his fight against the policy and placed his job is on the line.
    “It’s clear in his [Dr Marshall’s] summary of statements that he is unaware of the research we actually do,” the ***Nobel prize-winner said of his boss.
    “We actually need to continue to observe and understand and project future change, and compare the observations and projections if we are going to mitigate in a cost-effective way.”
    Dr Church, a globally recognised expert on sea-level rise, leads a team responsible for demonstrating how oceans are warming and glaciers are melting.
    He argued Australia would not be able to respond to climate change if it did not measure the changes.
    “How will Australia’s rainfall change? How will Australia’s drought-flood cycle change? This has really important implications for water supply, for food supply,” he argued…
    CSIRO chairman David Thodey tried to reassure scientists that Australia did not need the CSIRO’s climate modelling research.
    “Australia’s research capability in this field excels and it should be noted that the research strength is distributed across universities and a number of governmental agencies – of which CSIRO is one contributor,” he wrote.
    Dr Church disputed that claim, saying universities were not equipped to fill the void.
    “Universities do make a contribution, they make an important contribution, but they cannot and do not carry the weight of some of the large-scale and ongoing programs,” he said…
    Thodey: “CSIRO will continue to operate the RV Investigator for the benefit of scientists from Australia and around the world as a state of the art research facility.”
    But this was also questioned by Dr Church, who argued there was no point collecting data if scientists were not there to analyse the results.
    “If Australia pulls out of key activities in the southern hemisphere then that will leave significant gaps, we will be losing partnerships with key agencies all around the world,” he said…
    The union representing Dr Church and his colleagues, the CSIRO Staff Association, has lodged a dispute with the Fair Work Commission but no date has been set…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-19/award-winning-scientist-condemns-csiro-job-cuts/7184410

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    pat

    18 Feb: BDC (BuildingDesign&Construction) Network: David Malone: Best laid plans: Masdar City’s dreams of being the first net-zero city may have disappeared The ***$22 billion experiment, to this point, has produced less than stellar results
    Utopia. A word used to describe a place where everything is perfect. And, from an environmental standpoint, Masdar City, located just outside of the United Arab Emirates’ capital city of Abu Dhabi, was billed as a futuristic, green city that was supposed to be an environmentalist’s utopia…
    But, as the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry. Now, Masdar City looks more like a movie set after filming has wrapped or an abandoned Olympic venue of the past than a Jetsons-esque city of the future.
    In short, as The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg reports, Masdar City is closer to becoming the world’s first green ghost town than it is to becoming the world’s first net-zero city. The city’s completion date was 2016, but that goal is no longer attainable (the new completion date has been pushed back to 2030)…
    In 2006, before the hype surrounding Masdar City plummeted back to earth, the project was heralded as a future global hub for the cleantech industry. Developers expected 50,000 permanent residents and 40,000 commuters zipping around the futuristic city via driverless electric cars from one efficient and green building to the next.
    In 2016, there are only 300 permanent residents of Masdar City, all of whom are graduate students at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and, according to tour guides fewer than 2,000 people, overall, work on campus…
    ***(AT WHAT COST?) However, Masdar isn’t a complete failure. Sure, it will not reach its goals of being net-zero, but that doesn’t mean the city isn’t much more efficient than a typical city…
    http://www.bdcnetwork.com/best-laid-plans-masdar-city%E2%80%99s-dreams-being-first-net-zero-city-may-have-disappeared

    not only has the MSM NOT picked up this Guardian story, but Wikipedia hasn’t been updated:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_City

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    pat

    19 Feb: Financial Times: Tim Harford: The consequences of cheap oil
    For all the talk of the weightless economy, we’re not quite so post-industrial as to be able to ignore the cost of energy. Because oil is versatile and easy to transport, it remains the lubricant for the world’s energy system…
    Last year a report from PwC estimated that a permanent fall in the price of oil by $50 would boost the size of the UK economy by about 1 per cent over five years, since the benefits — to most sectors but particularly to heavy industry, agriculture and air travel — would outweigh the costs to the oil production industry itself.
    That represents the conventional wisdom, as well as historical experience…
    Here’s a piece of back-of-the-envelope economics. The world consumes nearly 100 million barrels a day of oil, which is $10bn a day — or $3.5tn a year — at the $100 price to which we’ve become accustomed. A
    sustained collapse in the oil price would slice more than $2tn off that bill — set against a world economic output of around $80tn, that’s far from trivial. It is a huge transfer from the wallets of oil producers to those of oil consumers…
    Another depressing possibility is that low oil prices will slow down the rate of innovation in the clean energy sector. The cheaper the oil, the less incentive there is to invent ways of saving it…
    That said, when fossil fuels are cheap, people will find ways to burn them, and that’s gloomy news for our prospects of curtailing climate change. We can’t rely on high oil and coal prices to discourage consumption: the world needs — as it has needed for decades — a credible, internationally co-ordinated tax on carbon.
    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/afb10dd8-d4fc-11e5-8887-98e7feb46f27.html

    19 Feb: Cambridge Network: No sign of Peak Oil
    The world looks set to depend on fossil fuels for some time to come, says The Scientific Alliance
    by Martin Livermore, The Scientific Alliance, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cambridge
    On a more parochial note, plans in EU member states for continued expansion of renewable energy were based on a projected reducing need for subsidies as conventional energy prices rose steadily. Now, however, it begins to look as though subsidies will escalate for the foreseeable future. In the UK, for example, the realities of photovoltaics having very limited potential at such a high latitude and the building of more onshore wind farms meeting continued resistance from local communities has made
    offshore wind an increasingly attractive proposition politically.
    Politically attractive maybe, but hardly so economically…
    As last week’s newsletter pointed out, offshore wind farm operators are being offered energy prices of at least £115 per MWh, over £20 more than the much-criticised strike price for electricity from the proposed Hinkley C nuclear plant…
    Even these inflated prices, paid for by consumers, don’t take account of the additional costs of transmission, grid strengthening and conventional backup…
    The wind and solar industries will doubtless put up strong resistance, because the higher-than-reported overall costs of their technologies is a secret they would rather was not made public. We can expect to hear much more of this kind of thing: “The additional costs of having variable generation on the system are low and for the most part renewable generators already pay these costs,” said Renewable UK’s director of policy, Dr Gordon Edge. “If we’re going to talk about system costs, then we also need to talk about the undoubted economic benefits that wind generators also bring,” he added.
    What those ‘undoubted economic benefits may be to those other than the foreign-owned suppliers of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, we wait to find out.
    http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/no-sign-of-peak-oil/

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    pat

    19 Feb: NYT: Stanley Reed: In Britain, a Green Utility Company Sees Winds of Change
    The owner of the wind farm, the British electricity company SSE, has been betting big on turbines as well as other renewables for years, with multibillion-dollar investments that have made the utility the country’s leading provider of clean power. In theory, last year’s United Nations climate accord in Paris should have been a global validation of the company’s business strategy.
    But instead of doubling down, the utility is rethinking its energy mix, reconsidering plans for large wind farms and even restarting a mothballed power plant that runs on fossil fuel…
    In this environment, it might be hard for even the most clean-minded power companies to help countries meet the goals set in the landmark Paris climate deal.
    “The profitability of renewables is lower than a few years back,” said Deepa Venkateswaran, a utility analyst at Bernstein Research in London. “If power prices fall, their revenues fall.”…
    The government is also trimming subsidies for renewables, and onshore wind farms and other clean sources like solar power are taking a direct hit…
    Offshore wind is far more expensive to build and operate because of the difficulties of sinking pilings on the sea bottom and keeping equipment functioning in a hostile marine environment. The estimated costs are more than double that of onshore wind.
    The subsidies can often make or break a project.
    The government has guaranteed a price above the $175 per megawatt-hour offshore costs for a Danish company that is going ahead with a multibillion-pound project off northeast England…
    Neil Richardson, a company spokesman, said SSE agreed with the government that “offshore wind and gas have a major role to play” in Britain’s transition to a lower-carbon energy mix, but he said issues including a guaranteed price for power and the future price of carbon were still unsettled. “We want to continue to invest,” he said, “but need certainty.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/business/energy-environment/in-britain-a-green-utility-company-sees-winds-of-change.html?_r=0

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    Peter C

    Great Post with some lovely tables.

    A warmist friend recently told me that extreme climate events were getting worse! Now I have some counter evidence.

    Thanks Jo and Chris Gillham, Geoff Sherrington, Lance Pidgeon, Phil,

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      Manfred

      Peter C. Add this, if you haven’t already.

      Alexander et al. (2011). Significant decline in storminess over southeast Australia since the late 19th century.
      Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal 61 (2011) 23-30.

      (Truncated abstract)

      Geostrophic wind speeds (geo-winds) were estimated for southeast Australia by constructing eight station triangles from instrumental records of qualitycontrolled sub-daily mean sea-level pressure from 1885 to 2008. While the results were marked by strong multi-decadal variations, they indicated a statistically significant decline in storminess across most regions in southeast Australia since the end of the 19th century, particularly in autumn and winter. Regionally averaged results showed a peak in storminess in the 1920s with least activity in the 1960s in all seasons.The results indicate that in addition to other climatic processes, the long-term decline in storminess may be contributing to the persistent drought conditions that are being experienced in this densely populated region.

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    Here in the UK there is no heatwave Bingo. The last serious heatwave was in 2003. Instead the Met Office has this winter started naming storms. There is a very low threshold. So far this winter there have been nine name storms. Makes us all feel that the climate is getting much worse.
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/uk-storm-centre

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    Anton

    Another trick you can do is install a new weather station. Then every single one of the first 12 months is the hottest ever recorded of that named month there. (That it is also the coldest needn’t be mentioned.) The point is that the frequency of records set is going to decline, the longer the station has been there.

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    Roy Hogue

    For a long time I have challenged anyone who asserted that this or that year was the hottest on record to tell me where and when that record was recorded and by how much the new record exceeded the old. Not a single person has replied with the information necessary to make the assertion of a record high temperature look like anything but fiction.

    I wonder why that is. 🙁

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    ScotsmaninUtah

    BOM and MET and ÑOAA and others …

    If BOM wants to publish temperature records ? that is great and if the MET and NOAA want to do the same? well go for it !
    But it would really be useful if either one of these institutions could predict “when and where” there are going to be floods and droughts with some degree of accuracy.

    I mean for the BOM to publish what happened in the past is okay … but not really useful.

    It’s like Gavin Schmidt saying “The climate models are good at predicting Global climate in the next 100 – 500 years but today they are only really skilled at Volcanoes”…
    it is meaningless …. 😮

    It would be fantastic if BOM could say that next year there is going be a whole 2 weeks of 40+ temps in Sidneyish..

    This is of course is expecting far too much.

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    TdeF

    Melbourne is experiencing the coldest February I can remember. It was always hot, like August in Paris, a double punishment for school children but this year we are hoping to reach 30 next week, for a few days. Just a few warm days in summer would be nice.

    The usual hypocrisy exists. If there are no storms, the place is cold, nothing is happening and there are no bushfires, that is just the ‘weather’. If there are a string of very hot days as usual, that is Climate Change.

    So the computer models which predicted extreme events are still the ones which without exception predicted steadily rising temperatures for the last twenty years? If the temperature does not go up, that is natural variation. If it does, that is climate change. Computers do not lie.

    What must the people like Climate Change Commissioner Prof Will Steffen be thinking? Surely as simply a chemistry PhD he must be thinking that if the temperatures do not fit the theory, the game is over? How can you base the last twenty years on a big career move to the Global Warming industry and admit you were wrong? If it wasn’t for the $1Tn a year going to the Wind and Solar Industries and the communist UN and those thousands of Climate Change departments in universities, councils and governments, this would all be over. In the words of Dr. Frankenstein, “It’s alive” and it refuses to die.

    Worse International Climate Change (nee Global Warming) is so crazy, even Robert Mugabe has a real hope of getting his $2.5Bn to compensate for the destruction of agricultural in Zimbabwe, a socialist peer reviewed science which does not even try to make sense or match the facts.

    We have an openly socialist activist ABC/SBS. An activist CSIRO. Now we have a blantantly activist BOM pushing Climate Change, homogenizing temperatures, upgrading cyclones without reason and yelling extreme event at every opportunity. Willing victims of click bait and twitter science and political activism. Sell the lot. We can get our information from satellites, as with our news, our politics and our science.

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    pat

    lol.

    19 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Climate change has dropped off the political radar
    A senior figure involved at the Paris talks asked me recently if I’d heard what plans NGOs had to keep the pressure up on leaders through 2016. They’d heard little. Neither, I confessed, had I…
    Fears of a global economic slump, US presidential elections, crashing oil prices, Syria, Brexit and the militarisation of the South China Sea have knocked global warming off the front pages.
    Add to that a mini exodus of the key figures who helped make Paris a success: UN climate chief Christiana Figueres leaves in July, COP21 president Laurent Fabius unexpectedly quit this week.
    It’s still unclear who’s running the show for Morocco at this year’s UN summit. Control of the COP22 summit was first with the environment ministry, then foreign affairs, and now with the department of interior.
    And there’s also flux at NGO level, with the WRI’s Jennifer Morgan leaving her influential role as unofficial civil society strategy chief to take joint charge of Greenpeace.
    Earlier this week members of the Climate Action Network – a broad coalition of green NGOs – met in Berlin to work out a path forward. Those taking part described the talks as positive.
    But with many US groups focused on the presidential elections and funding flows slowing, there’s a fear political pressure on the global process will dissipate…
    A green finance drive led by Mike Bloomberg and backed by the G20 could well deliver tough recommendations for fund managers later this year…
    And the Sustainable Energy For All Initiative, now led by the indomitable Rachel Kyte, has ambitious plans to connect everyone to cleaner forms of power well before 2030…
    Businesses are also showing signs of delivering – this week Apple launched a $1.5 billion green bond, top fund manager Blackrock says climate risk is now a key indicator for its portfolios…
    2017 will be a clean slate, with a new UN secretary general (Figueres anyone?), new US president and new UN climate chief.
    The case for a low carbon future is compelling, the framework offered by Paris ambitious, clean energy investment flows are soaring, coal is on the deck. It’s time to get to work people.
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/02/19/climate-change-has-dropped-off-the-political-radar/

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    pat

    “this term”?

    21 Feb: Bloomberg: Emma O’Brien: Australia Won’t Revisit Carbon Tax This Term, Deputy PM Says
    The Australian government won’t re-litigate the issue of a carbon tax this electoral term, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said.
    “There have not been any discussions about revisiting the carbon tax,” Joyce said in an interview on Sky News TV Sunday…
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-20/australia-won-t-revisit-carbon-tax-this-term-deputy-pm-says

    21 Feb: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: ‘No’ to more wind farms will mean the reverse
    The Government knows that when the wind is blowing, the grid will always give precedence to its subsidised electricity
    Last week’s front-page revelation by The Sunday Telegraph that the Government might scrap its 2015 election manifesto pledge to “halt the spread of onshore wind farms” was only the latest indication of just what an ever more dishonestly dangerous mess it is making of our energy policy. But to understand just what a tricky game it is playing here we must first look at the very careful way in which that promise was worded…READ ON
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/12166705/No-to-more-wind-farms-will-mean-the-reverse.html

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      TdeF

      There will be no Carbon Tax in a government he leads? Love the perceived need by the Nationals for the public denial of the very centrepiece of Malcolm’s political career. Remember the statement from the German ambassador, we will not be invading Russia, the day before the invasion. You have to ask why the Joyce denial was necessary? Is Joyce telling us something or is it a Chamberlain moment, peace in our time?

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        Rollo

        Tdef I don’t think our usurping leader will be acting on climate change.

        In the good old days when global warming was the greatest moral challenge of out time Malcolm was puffing his chest out and supporting the “carbon pollution reduction scheme”. Now that “global warming” has been watered down to “climate change”, I’m sure that Malcolm is wishing he never shot his mouth off. As the election draws near it will be fun watching as he turns himself into a pretzel trying to be sympathetic to the green delusion whilst backing away from any serious financial commitment to it.

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        • #
          TdeF

          It is not just a popular political idea. As Liberal leader Malcolm nearly had the Liberal party on an ETS platform as superior to a Carbon Tax. He was defeated only by one vote but otherwise half the Liberals thought it was a great idea. It was not Malcolm who stopped the boats and stopped the carbon tax and stopped the mining tax. He would increase them and still may.

          As head of Goldmann Sachs Australia, Malcolm is hopelessly compromised on issue. Golmann Sachs was accused publicly in the US of being the major creator and promoter and profit taker in the trillion dollar scam which was the GFC, fake mortgages for real money. Yes trillions were lost, but money is never lost, it goes to someone else. Everyone knew those mortgages were worthless, except the investors. Semi government loans to people with no income. Why no one is in jail is beyond me.

          Then the next big merchant bank thing was to be carbon trading, an ETS and it all goes through merchant banks who take their big percentage for trading our real cash for bits of worthless paper. Where the money goes is unknown and controlled by the UN and their friends. It is far worse than a Carbon tax. The money leaves the country forever to be replaced by real debt and all for bits of paper.
          The concern is that this was not just a populist political issue as it was for Rudd and Gillard and Brown. This is a really big money issue.

          So consider that Malcolm brings in an ETS as his first act as reelected PM, as Gillard did, who in parliament would oppose it? No one. It would sail through the senate with 100% support. This would also be his final vengeance on his mortal enemy Tony Abbott. So money, power and vengeance. For Malcolm, what’s not to like? What is Joyce going to say then? It cannot be removed.

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            Rollo

            Tdef I don’t think that Malcolm is the man of conviction you make him out to be. He will morph into whatever he thinks the voters are demanding. If the green meme continues to collapse(I hope and pray) Malcolm will distance himself from it, however, if there is a resurgence, he would probably bring in an ETS as you suggest.

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        ianl8888

        Abbott’s election list included the statement that no change to AGW/energy policies would occur in the 1st term

        Ditto for superannuation – no changes in the 1st term

        In my view, Lord Waffle will stick to these commitments. He does not want the Daily Telegraph lampooning him about broken promises when he has self-induced budget issues to contend with in an election year

        But post-election, it is all different. That is what Joyce is signalling. It’s what I commented on last September directly following the Palace Coup. It’s what is constraining the normal bile of the ABC and Fairfax

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          TdeF

          Exactly, as in my last paragraph. The Liberals have a Green cuckoo in the nest. He will do nothing until the election where even the Greens will support him. Why not? He is Labor/Green anyway, big taxing, big debts, a new ETS and restart the boat invasion. Who will stop him? Joyce?

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    el gordo

    ‘This week’s heatwave in Perth and the attention that it has received from a health perspective prompted me to look more deeply into the interaction of climate and health in Australia.

    ‘An article published in Environmental Health Perspectives Journal in November last year entitled ‘Between extremes: health effects of heat and cold’ provides a very good review investigating the effects higher and lower temperatures have on the human body. In particular, author Nate Seltenrich discusses the impacts of increasing heat waves, which could worsen as global average temperatures continue to trend upward.’

    Dr Anthony Horton

    ——–

    Might check out that journal article by Seltenrich to see if cold kills more people than heat.

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      AndyG55

      The ONLY reason they can say heat waves might increase is because they have changed the definition.

      Meanwhile, the satellite data tells us that Australia had its COLDEST January this century.

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      • #
        el gordo

        NOAA disagrees.

        ‘Though not as extreme as the past few months, temperatures remained above the 1961–1990 average across Australia during January. The average mean temperature for the month was +0.52°C (+0.94°F). Tasmania was the warm spot, with an average mean temperature that was 1.79°C (3.22°F) above average, its second highest for January, behind only 1961. National records begin in 1910.’

        Do you have a link?

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      Graeme No.3

      el gordo:

      there was a piece in The Australian this past week that cold conditions increases the chance of a stroke. Unfortunately my copy is lining a bin.

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    Wendy

    And it continues! 23 Feb and 9 news this morning is reporting that Sydney is going to have a heatwave today with temps in the low 30’s. Unbelievable!

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    Fred

    Here’s an idea: have BoM release graphs of all ACORN-SAT stations, with both raw and homogenised data, with reasons for changes attached, including scans (not transcripts) of pages from station history files. Starting with contentious stations like Rutherford and hopefully all of them over time. It would be interesting to hear the reasons for alteration of data at one station using data from one 500km away.

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