Only one mammal on tiny island supposedly wiped out by climate that has always changed

In a nutshell — this poor little rat lived on a outcrop in the ocean near Papua New Guinea that was 300m long. It’s now gone, and some people blame “climate change”. A thousand tide gauges show the oceans are rising at 1mm a year. We also know the world was much hotter 7,000 years ago, and sea levels rose 125m in the 7,000 years before that. Somehow the rat survived that massive natural shift. Now though, its precarious existence was destroyed by your air conditioners, cars and because you ate too much meat. Modern witchcraft.

Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change

Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lives on a tiny island in the eastern Torres Strait, being completely wiped-out from its only known location.

It is also the first recorded extinction of a mammal anywhere in the world thought to be primarily due to human-caused climate change.

So despite the non-stop fear campaigns about polar bears, possums, wallabys, bats, hares, pikas, this is it — the sole actual example of an extinction of a mammal living in the most high risk situation there is that is “thought” to be due to man-made climate change? So zero other extinctions. More likely zero extinctions “due to man-made weather” full stop.

The rodent, also called the mosaic-tailed rat, was only known to live on Bramble Cay a small coral cay, just 340m long and 150m wide off the north coast of Queensland, Australia, which sits at most 3m above sea level.

And here’s the graph of sea levels recorded in the best tide gauges at Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Here is the mammal-killer sea-level rise. Spot the effect of increasing CO2?

South Pacific, Sea level, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, 2016

When this graph begins in 1994, CO2 levels were at 356ppm. Now they are 50ppm higher. How much difference did 50 ppm make?

Graph from Pacific Sea Level Monitoring Project, Monthly Data Report – April 2016

Note that the rate per year recorded in the same document is 4 – 5mm a year. The start date of 1994 has a big effect — Mt Pinatubo probably reduced sea-levels around the world, (see also this page) and some of the rise in the graph above is more about recovery from that natural low.

Table 1. Updated overall rates of sea level movement based on SEAFRAME data from
installation through April 2016.

PNG Rate per year since 1994 is   4.9mm -0.2
Solomon Is. Rate per year since 1994 is 4.3mm -0.3

9 out of 10 based on 83 ratings

131 comments to Only one mammal on tiny island supposedly wiped out by climate that has always changed

  • #
    • #
      el gordo

      “There’s no chance of us going into an ice age now because the greenhouse gases we’ve put into the atmosphere during the industrial era have warmed the earth.”

      Hooray we are saved! They are not keen to talk about the approaching cool mini dip.

      The drift into a full blown ice age tipping point takes awhile, the world goes through desertification for 400 years before things become really serious.

      180

      • #
        King Geo

        el gordo don’t forget we have the LIA predicted mid/late next decade. We will be getting “desertification” then, in their droves, of course I am referring to “ex-warmists” deserting their “warmist belief system” because of the “obvious cooling climate” and that will be “cool comfort” for us “skeptics” having endured the “AGW Nonsense” for decades.

        110

      • #
        Konrad

        “They are not keen to talk about the approaching cool mini dip.”

        Indeed.

        A less active sun means less solar UV. Less energy absorbed and stored below the ocean themocline. There may be an 11 year delay for surface temperatures, but the Russians have got it right. While we may hope for a Dalton, we should prepare for a Maunder.

        On that point, if “Climate scientists” were real scientists, they would be frantically trying to extrapolate empirical evidence of the LIA in the southern hemisphere, where we have few written records. We know what happens in the north, we don’t have a good answer on the South.

        Australia, with its wide climate variability can easily laugh off a LIA. But regards agriculture we need to know what to move, where to move it and when to move it. Currently the climastrologist’s answers are “all your money”, “into subsidy farmer’s pockets” and “as soon as possible”. I fail to see this as a credible response to weakening solar activity.

        160

        • #
          el gordo

          ‘While we may hope for a Dalton, we should prepare for a Maunder.’

          According to Geoff Sharp the next Maunder type LIA won’t happen for a thousand years, so in the meantime I’ll be intellectually satisfied to see a string of cool wet summers and colder winters in Europe over the coming decade.

          The mindless Klimatariat and associated warmist cretins will be forced to accept that the game is up, earthlings experienced similar conditions with the demise of the MWP and so obviously AGW doesn’t cause gorebull worming.

          60

          • #
            King Geo

            “According to Geoff Sharp the next Maunder type LIA won’t happen for a thousand years”.

            Yes that is probably right – we will probably be amidst the next full scale Ice Age – “the Holocene Interglacial will be no more” – “it has gone to meet its maker” – “all statements to the effect that the Holocene Interglacial is a going concern are now inoperative” – “it is an X-Interglacial”.

            20

        • #
          el gordo

          ‘We know what happens in the north, we don’t have a good answer on the South.’

          http://jennifermarohasy.com/2007/07/the-little-ice-age-in-australia/

          30

    • #
      ianl8888

      The ABC article states more or less correctly that minor changes in the earth’s tilt and orbit (ie. Milankovitch) cause the onset and spread of glacial periods, but it gives no hint of what causes these tilt/orbital changes.

      That’s because, it then says, that increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations put there by Homo sapiens will prevent the next glacial period.

      So a minute increase in earthly atmospheric CO2 concentration will prevent the gravitational impact of Jupiter and other celestial bodies from altering earth’s tilt/orbit ?

      This sort of deliberately stupid, ignorant anti-science is why Cassandra suggests that the Renaissance is being reversed.

      140

      • #
        John in Oz

        I noticed the sentence “An ice age is triggered when summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere fail to rise above freezing for years.”

        If Summer temperatures are failing to rise above freezing then the ice age is already apparent rather than it being ‘triggered’.

        Sounds like cause and effect are being confused (as it is for CO2 and temps)

        20

    • #
      toorightmate

      I knew it. I knew it. I just knew it.
      It was Aqbal letting his grain crops give off methane on the banks of the Euphrates River 10,000 years ago.
      No wonder it’s so bloody hot today.

      60

    • #
      Allen Ford

      Forget this cooling alarmism, ABC only as recently as Landline on |June 6, complete with graphic footage, told us, “Rising temperatures spark ‘race to Tasmania’ for winemakers escaping heat”.

      Studies have confirmed that wine grapes are ripening between one and two days earlier each year due to a warming climate.

      Viticultural expert Professor Snow Barlow and his University of Melbourne colleagues have been observing the trend for decades.

      “This is overwhelming research … we did a survey of 45 vineyards around Australia where people had long-term data sets, some back as far as 100 years, some back as far as 70, but the minimum was back for 25 years … and that showed effectively that vintage was progressing or becoming earlier one day per year,” Professor Barlow said.

      A study co-authored by Professor Barlow found that earlier vintages were driven by warmer temperatures and lower levels of moisture in the soil.

      So, there you have it. The warming panic is still with us and you can forget the absurd notion of a coming freeze as pure scare mongering.

      20

      • #
        Jim Hutchison

        You quote Professor Snow Barlow. I attended the same university as the good professor – indeed I also attended his wedding on said Armidale campus all those years ago. Lovely bloke and a handy footballer in his day.

        It has always been a mystery to me how easy it is/was to become a professor.

        I am sure that the temperature data referred to by Barlow were accurately recorded by the many farmers involved. As always it is the interpretation which is the tricky part.

        But what of the many other variables? Questions trip over themselves in their haste to be heard and answered. Just to mention a few:-

        1. The Vines. Were they the same vines that existed in those 45 vineyards for up to 100 years? Even if the roots are the same I would expect that new and improved cultivars and perhaps even new varieties were grafted on to existing vines in some or all of the vineyards. Some vines would have been taken out and replaced. The replacement stock would have been superior in grape quality and other viticultural characteristics else they would not have been ‘modernised’. May be date ripening was earlier ????

        2. Vine Management. Vine Management techniques have changed over time. Canopy management through pruning is now much more scientific. One aim of canopy management is to open up the vines to the sun to enhance both quantity and quality of crop production. Unless the 45 vineyards persisted doggedly with outmoded canopy management for up to 100 years then it is likely that ripening dates would have moved forward.

        3. Viticulture: Universities, Technical Colleges and High Schools have developed a wide range of viticultural courses over the past 100 years. Soil moisture management, including by irrigation, is now much more scientific than it was 100 years ago. Of more significance is the attention to fertiliser application which is now much more scientific than it was 100 years ago. Unless the 45 vineyards under study had ignored moisture and soil nutrient management during the relevant time periods then this experiment is truly an uncontrolled one.

        4. Carbon Dioxide: There is little doubt that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been increasing globally and in Australia for the past 100 years. CSIRO research together with that conducted by many other researchers worldwide confirms that atmospheric CO2 has a fertilising effect. The 45 vineyards under study will have experienced this atmospheric fertilisation effect. I have not checked the viticultural literature to find whether such an effect might be expected to advance or delay ripening date. My gut feeling is tat it would advance it.

        So, with all possible respect to my old friend EWR (Snow) Barlow, I say that the remarks attributed to him are quite unscientific.

        50

  • #
    Sceptical Sam

    And why haven’t the so-called conservation and environmental groups expended some of their $billions on a survival habitat for this little creature instead of wasting it on promoting untruths and media misdirection?

    Of course that would require them to do something positive or constructive.

    The fact that all they do is whinge after the event demonstrates yet again it’s not about the science, it’s about the politics.

    421

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Oooh. A red thumb already.

      I must be over the target.

      260

    • #
      Peter Miller

      In reality, the disappearance of this rodent has more to do with genetic deterioration through prolonged and enforced inbreeding.

      Terrorist prone groups among certain sections of humanity suffer from the same type of genetic deterioration.

      190

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        True, but in those groups, it tends to present as decreased cognative ability.

        70

        • #
          David Maddison

          Indeed. If you Google “iq 81 pdf templer” you will find a paper that proves that point…

          10

      • #
        Mick In The Hills

        My money would be on the seagulls and sea eagles swooping on the young rodents causing their eventual demise (ever seen what happens to those young turtles?)

        Taste even better than swamp-rat (according to Shrek).

        30

      • #
        Geoffrey Williams

        Perhaps the little dear just grew fins and swam off into sea!
        GeoffW

        10

    • #
      toorightmate

      Trilobites and now rat.
      What next?

      50

    • #

      that’s simple – that decided to let it die..

      http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=64477
      – “this species is also a case study in how the role of natural and largely unpreventable processes, and the high cost of undertaking any recovery actions in such an isolated location, are important considerations when weighing up how and where conservation actions are directed”

      so, it was decided by the environmental agency responsible to let this species die out. .

      Exactly the same way as nearly happened with N USA’s Black Footed Ferret – the species was in decline for decades – in the mid 70’s the WWF started a fund to ‘save’ them.. I donated my hard earned school kid dollars and read with increasing disgust as the researchers ‘monitored’ the populations ongoing decline until in 1979 they were declared extinct – why had they not intervened?? This is when I began to doubt the experts.. They took millions and spent it watching and photographing them, but did not a thing to protect them. Luckily the US Fish and Wildlife Services found some and against the strict complaints of interference, they seized them and began a captive breeding program and reintroduction. Now there are a little over 1000 wild-born ones scampering about molesting everything in sight

      as I also wrote elsewhere: this claim is rubbish on so many levels – NOAA http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html NOAA states the Weipa Australia sea level rise is 3.48mm +/- 1.54mm / year. That translates as between 2 and 5cm in the ten years not 20cm. Cays, or keys are not islands but shifting, ephemeral sand deposits and come and go with tides, cyclones and weather events. There has been a tsunami and a couple of bad cyclones through there and wouldn’t be a surprise to see the cay gone altogether but I see it’s still there. The species of rat sadly has not been recorded since 2007 – sightings since then are unconfirmed.. and sadly none in the latest 2 surveys. The upside is, this was a subspecies, most likely isolated from PNG and like the ‘Balinese tiger’ is named a subspecies for it’s location more than it’s genotype. You can think of this the same way as the ‘Rottnest Island Bogan’ species extinction events occurring every winter. the species flourishes on the mainland though..

      100

    • #
      • #
        Annie

        Our money hasn’t gone to WV for many a long year. We were disgusted by the palace they built for themselves in Springvale Road in Melbourne. Neither have we contributed to the ‘charities’ with highly overpaid executives and big advertising and who rabbit on about climate change. Several charities wiped themselves off our list permanently after they used full page ads in the Daily Telegraph in UK to spout about climate change.

        One really good charity that has been drawn to our attention locally is the Mercy Ships one. The local link is with the Africa Mercy which is based in Madagascar. The work they do transforms very many lives…they are amazing.

        30

  • #

    Quick someone, build some turbines. In the name of ‘saving the reef’. ABC just said so.

    160

  • #
  • #

    Copy of my posting at WUWT, slightly reworded:
    If Google Earth has it right (big if) then Bramble Cay is 230km from Cape York and 57km from the PNG mainland.
    I don’t think the rats got there by swimming. Maybe on flood debris? Boat? The Cay is right in front of the Fly River estuary, so their habitat could conceivably have been affected by the Ok Tedi disaster. Correction – ongoing disaster. It appears the mine is still discharging pollutants after all this time. Hey – let’s blame it on Ross Garnaut. He was on the BHP Board around that time.

    130

    • #
      Dave

      Absolutely correct Martin

      Ross Garnaut – the man who wrote Kevin Rudds “The Garnaut Climate Change Review

      A great way to turn the eyes off massive Ok Tedi Pollution to a harmless CO2 molecule!

      A chameleon of the worst kind!

      90

      • #

        Garnaut was Chairman of Lihir Gold until 2010. Another disaster.
        Some record, being associated with two of the worst pollution events that have occurred in this hemisphere.
        Back in 1987, I was working at PNG University of Technology. We were asked to do an assessment of the Ok Tedi environmental impact assessment. A bit late as it turned out – the wall of the tailings dam had already collapsed once. One part of my contribution went something like – “An earth retaining wall is not going to last long in a country where there are minor tremours on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, and major tremours every few weeks … “

        110

    • #
      J.H.

      I used to fish Bramble cay in the 80’s and 90’s….. The melomys most likely get there by floating on debris flushed from the Fly river. You always get large logs, whole trees and masses of Nipa palm roots and trunks floating past the cay… and I mean lots, and big rafts of the stuff.

      I never actually saw any of the little guys and only went ashore once. Bramble cay is a great Spanish Mackerel fishery but a terrible anchorage, didn’t fish Bramble much, preferred to fish Stephens Island and other Torres strait reefs and cays.

      I[m guessing it wouldn’t take too long for an animal with such a short lifespan as this to inbreed and develop unique characteristics…. Apparently it only takes 50 generations for foxes to start to display domestication changes with changes to their appearance and behavior,(Google “Russian domesticated fox”). An inbred population of melomys isn’t really a “new species” as far as I’m concerned.

      140

    • #
      Binny

      Key words ‘only KOWN location’ Note the disclaimer rising the POSSIBILITY of a population in PNG.
      As you say a genetically unsustainable population of castaways.

      20

    • #
      M Conroy

      BHP Bilton seems to have bad luck with dams – Oki Tedi, Bento Rodriquez.

      00

  • #
    manalive

    Looking at the BoM graphs the strong El Niños of 1997-98 and 2015-16 certainly had an effect on the western tropical Pacific sea levels, I understand there is a corresponding sea level rise in the eastern tropical Pacific.

    80

    • #
      el gordo

      Depending on what ENSO and the PDO are doing, sea level rises and falls up to six inches (16 cms) alternatively in the Eastern and Western Pacific.

      40

  • #
    AndyG55

    You mean they can’t find one from a helicopter !!!

    130

  • #
    TedM

    London to a brick that this little critter was wiped out by disease, most likely transported to the island by the scientists researching it.

    110

    • #
      ROM

      Right on Ted M.

      As was the case of the very mysterious chytrid fungus, originating in Africa which African frogs were immune to but frogs on other continents were highly susceptible to.
      This led to the extinction of the Central American Golden Toad which initially was blamed on guess what, Climate change from the Ozone hole effects.

      It turned out that this deadly to amphibians such as frogs “chytrid fungus” was being carried on the amphibian researchers boots and shoes into new areas and continents around the world by the very scientists investigating the amphibian deaths from this deadly disease.

      You won’t see that explanation now anymore as it seems to have been suppressed as it reflected very badly indeed on the amphibian field researchers and their bio-security culture.

      The explanation given now is a frog species which was a carrier of the disease but was not severely affected by it was being used in laboratories but it was the escapees from those laboratories that spread the disease amongst the local populations of amphibians.

      Somehow the current explanation just seems a bit to far removed from what happens in real life for me to fully believe it.

      The first and original explanation for all those frog and amphibian deaths and one at least extinction made a lot of sense but revealed a very big lack of scientific responsibility and a complete lack of a culture of a stringent bio-security on the part of the field amphibian researchers.

      120

  • #
    gnome

    Send some of that climate change my way – I have a rat that needs extinctifying too. Luckily, usually about this time of the year the brown tree snakes come around and check if there’s anything that needs their attention.

    What’s so good about rats?

    100

    • #
      AndyG55

      ” I have a rat that needs extinctifying too”

      What do you call it.. Bill or Malcolm?

      141

    • #
      Annie

      Nothing good about rats! The farm cat is having a well deserved snooze after leaving a dead rat near the house. Good boy Fatso Catso!

      30

    • #
      AndyG55

      When I left the country to come down to Newy, I left a big old farm cat (de-sexed) with a farmer who had a rat problem in one of his outer paddock sheds.

      Ran into the farmer a couple of years later and asked how the cat was.. he said.. “Dunno where the cat is, but there ain’t no rats in the barn any more”

      50

  • #
    ROM

    This following quote is taken from the link “first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change” that Jo provided to link to the Guardian [ falsehoods again] article in question; Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change

    The quote which is a regular feature quote of the climate cult alarmists and the green sleaze from the article is;

    A report in 2015 found one sixth of the world’s species face extinction due to climate change, and scientists have warned that the world is on the edge of the sixth mass extinction.

    Now what’s wrong with that statement you might think.

    That highlighted statement ; one sixth of the world’s species face extinction is a plain straight out lie and there is no other way to describe it regardless of who originated the statement.

    The number of species on this planet is completely unknown so how can the Guardian and / or so called scientists so openly and blatantly claim and lie that one sixth of the species face extinction with such an utterly unprovable and evidence free in its entirety claim in the arrogant belief that they will be believed because of their common to climate scientist’s trait of “we are scientists and how dare you doubt us” attitudes .

    And they lie so blatantly without a skerrick of any evidence at any level to support their claims.

    Recently the numbers of species on this planet has been suggested at around a trillion species when all the bacterial species are included but this again is just nothing more than a pure guesstimate from biologists, mark “from biologists”, NOT from some shoe sized intellect climate scientists whose entire trougher existence is based on trying to keep the public frightened so as to keep the trough full of the tax payers hard earned.

    130

    • #
      Mark D.

      ROM: The number of species on this planet is completely unknown so how can the Guardian and / or so called scientists so openly and blatantly claim and lie that one sixth of the species face extinction

      That’s easy ROM, they have a model for that. Models make the world go around.

      60

  • #
    Dave

    In the article

    Exclusive: scientists find no trace of the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that was the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef.

    The Only Mammal endemic to the Great Barrier Reef System

    Is Bramble Cay even in the Great Barrier Reef?

    It’s on the sludge pit of the Sepik River East of Daru!

    90

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Old journalistic saw: Never spoil a good extinction story with the facts.

      So, when fresh supplies of Melomys are washed down by floods in the Sepik, expect total silence from the ABC and the usual suspects.

      110

    • #
      gnome

      Ummmm Daru – Sepik???

      30

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      The Sepik? To date I thought it was the Fly.

      See J.H. @ #5.2. And note while there that you don’t always need computer models to develop science.

      Then tell them to look for their rat on the mainland.

      30

    • #
      James Murphy

      the Sepik reaches the ocean on the “northern” side of PNG. There are loads of rivers dumping vast volumes of stuff into the gulf, but the Fly would probably be the closest/largest.

      I only remember this because I worked with a policeman who was previously based near the Fly River where it makes up the border with West Papua. The local police force did not take kindly to Indonesians who crossed the border into PNG. Evidently it was a one way trip for quite a few. The same man was only armed with a pistol and a shotgun when I was on the Purari river with him, and he was very disappointed because “…shotguns are good for hunting birds, but assault rifles are better for people…”, he told me with rather a wistful tone.

      [Commenters don’t run with this topic OK? — Jo ]

      00

  • #
    damon

    “the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef”

    What is the evidence that this rat was a distinct species? Speciation takes a long time – it would have had to survive a lot of hurricanes, a lot of high tides, and have no means of external replacement.

    100

  • #
    ROM

    The well known skeptic and prolific writer and commentator, Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist had this to say about extinctions in a june 2015 post.

    INVASIVE SPECIES ARE THE GREATEST CAUSE OF EXTINCTION

    Quoted;

    Over the past 500 years, we know of 77 mammal species (out of about 5,000) and 140 bird species (out of about 10,000) that have gone totally extinct.
    There may be a handful more we do not know about, and there are plenty more on the brink.
    Nonetheless, these are the official total species extinctions for the two groups of animal we know best, as compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    Of those 217 species of bird and mammal, almost all lived on islands — if you count Australia as an island — and just nine on continents: Bluebuck antelope, Algerian gazelle, Omilteme cottontail rabbit, Labrador duck, Carolina parakeet, slender-billed grackle, passenger pigeon, Colombian grebe and Atitlan grebe.

    Were it not for the efforts of conservationists there would be more, of course.
    And this is not counting subspecies, or those in extinction’s waiting room — ones that have not been seen for years, but have yet to be officially declared extinct, like the slender-billed curlew.
    Nonetheless, the extinction rate of bird and mammal species on continents is a few hundredths of a per cent per century.

    This is far short of the apocalyptic predictions being made in the 1970s.
    Paul Ehrlich, one of the authors of the new paper, himself forecast in 1975 that half of all the species in tropical rainforests would be gone by 2005.
    Yet not a single bird or mammal that we know of has gone extinct in a tropical rainforest.

    My point is not to say extinction does not matter, but to try to get at the real cause of the extinction surge, and it is clearly not the growth of human population and consumption, which has mostly happened on continents.
    Europe has lost just one breeding bird in 500 years, for example — the island-breeding great auk in 1844.
    &
    It’s the rats, cats, goats, pigs, mosquitoes and avian malaria we brought with us that did the damage on Hawaii and throughout the Caribbean, the south Atlantic, the Indian ocean and the rest of the Pacific.
    The dodo disappeared from Mauritius not because sailors ate them (though they did) but because of predation by monkeys, pigs, rats and the like.
    The Tristan albatross is in trouble on Gough Island because its chicks are eaten alive by introduced mice.

    Closer to home, it’s invasive species that are the main cause of conservation problems and local extinctions: grey squirrels, mink and signal crayfish have recently all but extinguished red squirrels, water voles and native crayfish respectively near where I live.
    Ash dieback, zebra mussels, harlequin ladybirds, Chinese mitten crabs, New Zealand flatworms and muntjac are all causing declines in native British animals.

    100

  • #
    tom0mason

    A quick search with ‘List of animals threatened by climate change’reveals so many alarming headlines — here’s a few…

    Many different animals are more at risk due to climate change in the United States. Here is a sample of the over 1,400 endangered species on the Red List that are currently threatened by climate change worldwide.

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/18/3592914/endangered-species-list-climate/
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    While world leaders fret over how best to combat climate change, many animals and plants are already feeling the effects. Here are 11 species, as chosen by the International Union For Conservation of Nature’s climate change specialist group, which are under threat from global warming.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/11-species-threatened-by-climate-change/
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    While world leaders fret over how best to combat climate change, many animals and plants are already feeling the effects. Here are 11 species, as chosen by the International Union For Conservation of Nature’s climate change specialist group, which are under threat from global warming.

    http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/species_and_climate_change.pdf
    IUCN — International Union for the Conservation of Nature
    Yes another bunch of troughers promulgating alarm and nonsense. As far as I can see, they apparently believe that humans can control nature. A more deranged idea is hard to fathom!
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Meanwhile http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspecies/HumanClimateChangeKTPListing.htm
    has been busy looking at models and the virtual facts they reveal about speies loss.

    5. Modelling of the distribution of species under realistic climate change scenarios suggests that many species would be adversely affected unless populations were able to move across the landscape (for example, Brereton, Bennett and Mansergh 1995). Examples of species which would be at risk in New South Wales include:
    Mammals
    Burramys parvus – Mountain Pygmy-possum
    Potorous longipes – Long-footed Potoroo
    Mastacomys fuscus – Broad-toothed rat
    Pseudomys fumeus – Smoky mouse

    Birds
    Leipoa ocellata – Malleefowl
    Pedionomus torquatus – Plains-wanderer
    Tyto tenebricosa – Sooty Owl
    Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne – Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo
    Polytelis anthopeplus – Regent Parrot
    Petroica rodinogaster – Pink Robin
    Pachycephala rufogularis – Red-lored Whistler

    Reptiles
    Delma impar – Striped Legless lizard
    Amphibians
    Litoria spenceri – Spotted Frog
    Litoria raniformis – Southern Bell Frog
    Pseudophryne pengilleyi – Northern Corroboree Frog
    Pseudophryne corroboree – Southern Corroboree Frog

    Flora
    Communities likely to become threatened include alpine vegetation communities (Busby 1988, Hughes & Westoby 1994).

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    And so the money machine rolls on under the foolish belief that humans can both profoundly control and damage nature. I have news for you — humans are part of nature and like any species at or near the top of the pyramid of life, we know little to nothing of our (or any others) ultimate destiny. The changes at the base of the pyramid will have more profound changes than we can affect. So sorry but nature will survive despite our best efforts impose stasis on nature.

    90

    • #
      Spetzer86

      A few turbines and we’ll take the birds off the list right quick and nobody will say boo about it.

      110

  • #
    TdeF

    99.99% of all species which ever existed are extinct. As a species Homo Sapien has only been in existence for 100,000 years and there are seven billion of us. Agriculture was only discovered 10,000 years ago and then the wheel, sharp burnt stick and onto the very recent iron age. However it seems we are responsible for the rest of the 4.5Billion years.

    Next we will be responsible for mega volcanoes, asteroid strikes, volcanic winter and more mass extinction events. All because we are burning some rotted plant matter and changing the amount of CO2 from 0.03% to 0.04%. You would have to be joking. Can’t species come and go without our involvement?
    That is the very nature of evolution. So I guess the next move after stopping Climate Change is to stop evolution. Or tax it.

    170

    • #
      TdeF

      By the way, we are not changing the amount of CO2. That is just the unspoken and scientifically childish hypothesis of alarmists that CO2 in the air is an immutable constant not subject to say changes in ocean temperature where 98% of all CO2 resides. In their world, nothing is in equilibrium and Henry’s law does not exist.

      Frankly from measuring C14, this is disproven, but even if it were true, so what really? There is obviously no heating anyway, let alone runaway, catastrophic tipping point global warming with Sydney under 100 metres of water. Even the rare and now extinct mosaic tailed rat would think this silly. You have to wonder what species found them delicious? Or did they catch some tropical disease introduced by researchers or did someone forget their cat?

      111

    • #

      99.99% of all species which ever existed are extinct.

      Interesting and irrelevant.

      If an alien arrives on Earth tomorrow and spreads disease and toxins into the environment and kills half of all species and then says to the remaining humans…

      “Don’t worry, when I kill off all you humans it does not matter that much since 99.99% of all species which ever existed are extinct.”

      22

      • #
        TdeF

        Or an asteroid. It is relevant.

        We humans are part of rapid evolution and it is not finished yet! Think of all the changes in the last 100,000 years. What happened to Neanderthals? We have just settled the fact that we have a lot of Neanderthal genes. So they are not gone, just as a distinct species but then a species by definition should not be able to interbreed.

        However the people who scare easily want everything to stay the same, some very obscure rat in a very obscure place to the sea level to the temperature to the weather. At what point will they admit that there is no reason to assume today is optimum? Change is normal. Even Climate Change. It is not anyone’s fault and there is no evidence that Global Warming, which is not happening, is producing Climate Change or even what form that takes?

        31

        • #
          TdeF

          Also humans and dinosaurs never coexisted, unless you count crocodiles, turkeys and sharks. We humans were able to evolve from some very odd marsupials who were little more than scavengers. We had no nuclear power stations. Thanks to a random event, a meteor strike, 150 million years of dinosaur evolution came to an abrupt end. It could happen any day. However this climate business is about 0.1C in variation in an artificial and perhaps meaningless temperature. Suggesting that even 0.5C over ten years in the 1980s has resulted in major or significant or even real species extinction is just ridiculous.

          51

  • #
    thingodonta

    The devil is always in the details.

    Apparently wild dogs eat them, and are brought to the island periodically. From the report.

    “Direct mortality of Bramble Cay melomys individuals due to predation by domestic dogs brought
    ashore from fishing vessels (A. Moller-Nielsen pers. comm.) and hunting by visiting indigenous
    people from Papua New Guinea (A. Ketchell pers. comm.) would have contributed to pressures on
    this isolated rodent population”.

    You think?

    It may not be extinct. It might occur on other places, including the PNG mainland.

    “the possibility that the species occurs elsewhere on islands in the Torres Strait deserves serious
    consideration”.

    “Together, these observations and associated evidence suggest a New Guinean origin of the Bramble
    Cay melomys is not only plausible but perhaps the more likely of the two hypotheses.”

    Did they look properly on PNG.? Apparently not.

    “However, a possibility exists that the Bramble Cay melomys occurs in the Fly River delta area of
    southern New Guinea and so, until this area is adequately surveyed, it may be premature to formally
    declare the species extinct.”

    This kind of sloppy journalism wouldn’t past muster in any other field except within environmentalism, for reasons that are obscure to me.

    181

    • #
      TdeF

      Maybe they became bored and left? Swam away. Jumped on the next boat. Became lazy and unfit from too many Mai Tais and too much time in the tropical sun? Maybe they were all males? How someone can pin the vanishing of a unique and tiny and clearly marginal population of rats on a tiny island on Climate Change is beyond explanation. Maybe Climate Change is why the Australian cricket team just lost by 4 wickets in the one day game against the West Indies in St. Kitts. Could not handle the extra 0.5C? Perhaps the first Australian international cricket game loss caused by Climate Change?

      51

      • #
        RoHa

        Now you’ve done it! They’ll run with that idea. Expect headlines:
        “Australia loses Ashes due to Human Induced Climate Change”.

        41

  • #

    Copy of a recent report on this critter:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90071372/bramble-cay-melomys-survey-report.pdf
    https://db.tt/50yDWGWJ

    If you are surprised at the number of times “climate change” is dragged up in the report, have a look at page 34. They acknowledge the assistance of – wait for it – Tim Flannery !!!

    101

    • #
      AndyG55

      Seems that with the rat out the way, the eggs of the birds will be safer.

      91

    • #
      Yonniestone

      So a report on a cute endangered rat uncovers one of the common ugly ones, interesting.

      They should have gotten an expert on dead rats not dead horses…..

      60

  • #
    cedarhill

    This really confirms we’re simply not doing enough to kill the rats.

    70

  • #
    Popeye26

    I LOVE this bit in the linked article from the Guardian – especially the little bit at the end that I’ve bolded.

    “The authors said the IUCN lists one other mammal that was driven to extinction, partly by extreme weather – the Little Swan Island hutia – but introduced cats on the island were considered the main driver of extinction.”

    How can they even SURMISE the statement “partly by extreme weather” and then talk about introduced cats.

    These people (I deign from calling them scientists) have no shame!!

    Cheers,

    120

  • #
    Keith L

    If there really was only one then I think I know why it died out.

    60

    • #
      AndyG55

      All those “environMENTALists” running around hunting it, digging up its nests, scaring the crap out of it etc etc…

      ….. can’t have help much either.

      Oh look… here’s one.. let’s put it in a cage and study it !!!

      111

      • #
        ROM

        AndyG55 @ # 20.1

        Maybe closer than you think to the realities, Andy.

        Back in the early 1970’s Rachel Carson wrote her book, Silent Spring where she claimed without any hard evidence at all [ sounds familiar when it comes to the green sleaze, ] that DDT was responsible for the large reduction in the numbers of Raptors in Africa due to the thinning of the Raptor’s egg shells and the consequent very high levels of death amongst the Raptor’s chicks.

        Silent Spring of course was the excuse that the then new and nascent Greenpeace organisation, which without any consideration for the ethical or moral consequences of the ability of DDT to control the malaria mosquito, needed to give itself vast reams of publicity by demanding the total elimination of any use in any circumstances of the malarial mosquito controlling DDT.

        As most readers here will know, the elimination of DDT according to the WHO has now cost at least 50 million avoidable deaths since the mid 1970’s due to the resurgence of Malaria after DDT was banned.

        Some researchers and workers in the 1970’s Malaria disease field have since claimed they were not far off of eliminating Malaria [ like the Small Pox elimination ] with DDT when it was banned, mostly through the decision of just one person, the then American head of the USA’s federal health department who decided after heavy lobbying by the Greenpeace organisation to ban DDT use and production without ever reading the scientific report that basically said that DDT was a truly essential element in the war against Malaria.
        .

        Since then some biologists have claimed that the deaths of raptor chicks during that 1970’s period was not due so much to DDT but was caused by the extreme stress inflicted on the Raptors by the environmentalists ie; Greenpeace and etc operatives constantly climbing up to their nests to inspect and handle the chicks.

        Interference with nesting birds on this scale will invariably lead to extreme stress in the adults and chicks and therefore a very high death toll amongst the susceptible chicks of any wild species of birds or animals .
        .

        But hey, they were environmentalists who cared so much about the environment and so they were immune from critiscm as they were already back then saving the world’s dissapearing wild life weren’t they?.

        And soon they were to graduate to “saving the entire planet” with the increasingly disastrous consequences for humanity and the world’s wild life that we are now beginning to see all around us.

        And it is only recently that I have come across some comments that were not challenged, where the late Rachel Carson, the darling of the hard left green watermelon environmental movement has been called some very nasty names as one of the most destructive persons and destructive influences on the pragmatic preservation of wild life and the initiator of the deaths of millions of the poorest people on this planet with her very biased and bigoted claims against DDT which she promulgated without any scientific evidence or backing for her  claims and then her demands for the banning of DDT done without any scientific backing for such a strategy at any level.

        And Greenpeace was the vehicle by which eagerly took up all her claims as an environmental gospel and then enforced the banning of both the use and production of DDT world wide through very high powered and exceedingly generously financed lobbying at the highest levels in numerous governments.

        Greenpeace and the WWF and other green watermelon environmental organisations have never ever admitted any culpability in the deaths of those millions from Malaria due almost entirely to their lobbying to get DDT banned.

        India for one did not swallow that DDT banning demand but kept right on producing DDT .

        And now with a new generation of researchers and politicals DDT is again in production across the world but is being used with far more discrimination along with other insecticides to try and once again bring the malarial mosquito and malaria under control.

        61

        • #
          M Conroy

          I read Rachel Carson what seems like eons ago. And for a short while I was convinced we had committed an incredible mistake in ever using DDT.
          But then I read about the diseases the mosquitos carried. Maybe we weren’t so bad. And then I thought about the “studies” I’d read (because my eco buddies gave them to me) which weren’t much more than some people saying they had counted dead birds and un-hatched eggs – but no measurements of shells, no chemical analysis of embryos or bodies. So no proof.
          Paving over fields and piping streams underground kills more birds than DDT ever did. Windmills kill more birds than DDT ever did.
          I propose a new book – “From Silent Spring to Silent Summer – How Clean Energy Killed the Birds.”

          00

  • #
    ROM

    I wonder if Climate Change will be responsible for our extinction?

    Bit of a conundrum there!

    If we, that is mankind, goes extinct then who is going to held responsible for Climate Change and all the other extinctions it will trigger that will invariably follow our Climate Change induced extinction?

    Climate Change is a truly universal panacea for unexplained or as an alternative for completely logical explanations which are unacceptable to Climate Change cult believers as being too logical and too simple to explain occurrences of every nature and type.
    Climate change with its very vaporous and un-describable construct that nobody, including its most advanced adherents of the highest caste can explain easily or explain at all but which can be used to explain and has been used to explain just about every single destructive and alleged disaster along with every similar and future predicted and similar disasters and destructive happenings on this planet for many decades into the future.

    And yet like ”Gravity” nobody including its strongest adherents, can clearly define Climate Change and explain just what is Climate change nor through what mechanism it has this tremendous power over whatever it touches as so eloquently described and so frequently espoused by the climate alarmists, climate scientists and greens and climate catastrophists in every conceivable situation and happening regardless of any rational and pragmatic “natural” explanations for the sequence of events.

    “Climate Change” is pure magic, its powers and subtleties far beyond the understanding and comprehension of even its fiercest progenitors and proponents let alone the understanding of Climate Change and all its immense powers by the common man.
    They, in their fanatical beliefs in Climate Change’s intimidating ability to destroy every known organism and every formerly natural event on this planet almost without any exceptions, know it is always there in its all powerful, ever dominate guise.

    And only man, that is man as the Climate Scientist Climate Change adherent can ever know how to blunt its deadly destructive potential or to predict its deadly onset which as we are told by those same Climate Scientists, Climate Change adherents, is being seen in every aspect of our lives and society and environment already today let alone the destruction that has been so profoundly predicted to occur through Climate Change in the decades into the future.
    .
    Do I need a /sarc ?

    70

    • #
      LightningCamel

      Climate change, a useful catechism.
      No need to think, just quote catastrophism.
      Something changed?
      Don’t get deranged.
      Take refuge in anti-intellectualism.

      90

  • #
    LightningCamel

    Mass extinctions are where climates at.
    But there’s only one example, a rat.
    Its home on a cay,
    Passed by logs each day,
    Yet a species it became, what scat!

    90

  • #
    pat

    forget Ratty…we’ll all be gone in six months.
    poor Andrew Simms is virtually incoherent at this point, perhaps he’s panicking as the end draws near:

    14 Jun: Guardian: Andrew Simms: 100 months to save the world: It’s the economy that needs to be integrated into the environment – not the other way around
    Six months and counting
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/14/putting-a-price-on-nature-is-wrong

    when u start an article with $100 trillion, it definitely gets my attention:

    15 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Pascal Canfin: Green bonds must keep the green promise
    With almost US$100tn in assets, global debt capital markets are among the largest and deepest financial markets in the world, providing investors with fixed-income investment opportunities that allow them to preserve and increase their financial capital at a relatively low risk.
    They could also play a paramount role in financing sustainable development. The challenge is to figure out ways in which we can tap into this pool to raise the financial capital we need to create a sustainable economy for the only planet we have; where natural capital is preserved, restored and enhanced rather than destroyed…

    Better information is needed to allow investors to take a view. Issuers should be required to provide data annually and at maturity of the bond to demonstrate the environmental impact of its underlying assets over its entire lifetime, as well as an analysis of budgeted vs. actual environmental benefits according to the appropriate key-performance metrics…
    Green bonds can help break the tragedy of the horizon by connecting present and future generations. This is also WWF’s mission and imperative: to build a future where people live in harmony with nature.

    About the writer: Pascal Canfin is head of WWF France
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/15/green-bonds-must-keep-the-green-promise/

    40

    • #
      tom0mason

      Pat…

      I wonder if anyone understands and can explain the phrase

      They could also play a paramount role in financing sustainable development.

      Umm, sustainable development … I wonder what they mean?
      Would be that the same as the crony capitalist ideas of the Great UN elitist Maurice Strong, Agenda 21, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, with its empty definitions, misanthropist ideas, and its determination to cause damage to both the natural world and the human world while ensuring the crony capitalists get richer.

      100

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Bankrolling a global genocide to appease some high functioning psychopaths, short version but yours was better.

        50

  • #
    Ruairi

    Be doubtful that a creature is extinct,
    Which warmists claim is man-made warming linked.

    80

  • #
    Mark D.

    In parts of USA the Moose population is declining and it seems the troughers can’t help but suggest that climate change is the problem.

    Moose are mammals, live in boreal forest areas with winter temps regularly going as low as -40F and summer temps as high as +100F. They apparently are unable to cope with a degree or two of average temperature increase.

    Even though WE KNOW the massive increase in population of the Grey Wolf, an observed predator of Moose, correlates with the Moose decline-

    Even though WE KNOW the spread to Moose of a fatal parasite carried by White-Tailed Deer whose population increase in Moose country is unchecked and could be managed better by hunting but is not-

    Even though vigorous forest fire fighting and prohibitions on logging ARE KNOWN to have caused a decline in Moose favorable habitat (they are observed to move into cleared and burned areas)-

    even though it is the “EXPERTS” in government that have caused the increase in Grey Wolf population, have sole control over the hunting of White-Tailed Deer, control the logging and fire-fighting, we are still told that nearly unproven “climate change” plays a role in the decline of Moose.

    B.S. artists!

    150

  • #
    richard ilfeld

    And the legendary snail darter finally has a companion…..

    60

  • #
    Mike

    The Tasmanian Tiger became extinct on an island and it was another man made extinction.

    30

    • #
      Mike

      The Tasmanian Tiger was “induced” by “humans” into extinction.

      More “human” “induced” extinction.

      From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis

      “Decline

      In the 1990s, a decrease in the number of vultures was noted by Vibhu Prakash of the Bombay Natural History Society, who had monitored vulture populations at Keoladeo National Park.[7][8] As the decline accelerated, the international scientific community looked for a reason. …………”

      “Causes

      After work on possible viral causes of the decline, the culprit was discovered by Dr. Lindsay Oaks and his team in 2003 to be diclofenac.[10] Diclofenac is a common anti-inflammatory drug administered to livestock and is used to treat the symptoms of inflammation, fevers and/or pain associated with disease or wounds. It was widely used in India beginning in the 1990s. The drug is fatal to vultures, however, and a vulture is exposed to a mortal dose of diclofenac if it eats from the carcass of an animal that has been treated with diclofenac recently.[11] A simulation model demonstrated that if only 1% of carcasses were contaminated by diclofenac, Indian vultures would be decimated, and a study of carcasses showed that about 10% were contaminated.[12]

      Gyps species were the most affected by diclofenac.[13] The population of the White-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) fell 99.7% between 1993 and 2002. The populations of the Indian vulture (Gyps indicus) and the slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) fell 97.4%. The percentages differ slightly because the white-rumped vulture is more sensitive to diclofenac than the other two species, but all three were in danger of extinction.[14] Two other species of Gyps, the Himalayan vulture (Gyps himalayensis) and the Eurasian griffon (Gyps fulvus) were less affected, the Eurasian griffon because it only winters in India and has a much smaller initial population and the Himalayan vulture, with a similarly small population, because it is exclusively mountain-dwelling.[15] Vulture populations have continued to decline in India at a rate of between 20% and 40% each year since 2007.[16]

      40

  • #
    Reed Coray

    In this rare case I have to agree with the CAGW alarmists; but with a slightly different twist. AGW didn’t directly cause the rats’ demise, but indirectly it did because the rats decided to desert the CAGW sinking ship.

    61

  • #
    Glenn999

    But wait!! It’s not too late.

    We need a grant to immediately go collect whatever DNA scraps we can find, map the genome, and start growing the little beastie.
    Climate Change is our biggest threat and this sweet cowerin’ timourous critter needs to be saved!

    42

  • #
    farmerbraun

    The same thing happened to the pursuing Egyptians . . . inundation by an incoming sea , in what is , without doubt, the first recorded instance of catastrophic climate change.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Red_Sea

    41

  • #
    ROM

    If anybody really wants to see life living on the edge here in Australia I suggest they have a look at the Australia’s Desert Springs site.

    This site gives a roundup of the Mound Springs around Lake Eyre that are fed by the Great Artesian Basin waters.

    Desert Goby’s plus snails and various other species of very small fish are apparently common in most of these springs.

    And it seems that some of these tiny fish living in these extreme desert environment daily experience both huge and very rapid variations in temperatures, intense solar UV, severe frosts at night, the probability of rapidly changing water qualities with heavy rain bringing fresh water and then back to the mineral laden artesian water on a very irregular basis.
    And surprisingly there are variations between fish of the same species but in different springs which indicates they have been in those individual springs for a long time and many generations.

    The photographs are very poor but give a good perspective of just how small and shallow some of these springs are such as in the Edgbaston springs in Queensland, the water is only a few centimetres deep but the fish are still there and obviously have been for a long time.

    A short quote;

    The type locality of the redfinned blue-eye. Temperatures in this spring may vary by at least 17°C (31°F) in only 3-4 hours. Maximum depth is 4cm (1.6in) Edgbaston goby are also present in small numbers.

    Also a page with a lot of links to the fish of Australia’s Desert outback; Index to the Australian Desert Fishes Pages

    The green sleaze and alarmist troughers carry on at length about species far removed from Australian shores but it seems that they know almost nothing about the real Australia outside of their concrete jungles in the inner cities if we go by their reactions to the Barrier Reef bleaching and other regular and quite natural events that happen continually in any natural system.

    As for the Guardian, its reporters are way, way out of their depth the moment they move outside of the offices they occupy somewhere in the UK.
    —————–
    And for what it is worth, the original Ghan Railway from Pt Augusta to Alice Springs ran up the western side of Lake Eyre and across a lot of creeks and short rivers that feed Lake Eyre from the west when they get good rains in Central Australia.

    I could never work out why those early 20th century Ghan Railway builders built across that rough country on the route they did and didn’t build the line to Alice Springs a lot further west towards where the new Ghan railroad now runs.

    Well it turns out that the answer is very simple.
    They ran that rail line close to and up the western side of Lake Eyre so as to be able to tap and use the water from the Mound Springs, there is no other guaranteed supply of water anywhere else there, to fill the water demands of the steam locomotives that hauled the Ghan.
    Those steam locos needed water about every 100 miles or 160 kilometres and the Mound Springs were their only guaranteed source of water hence the first Ghan rail route was across some rough country to the west of Lake Eyre so as to tap those Mound springs for water for their locomotives.

    61

  • #
    Dennis

    ABC Radio National this morning, South Australia is the renewable energy state and soon batteries to store that energy will transform the state into a powerhouse economy (my description). The cost is a bit high right now but like took place with solar panels it will be lower over time as more are put into service.

    So there we are, no more planning needed for replacement of fossil fuel power stations, they will soon be obsolete.

    40

    • #
      Mal

      AGL has just announced that power prices in SA will increase by 10% next year because of the closure of the last coal fired power station

      40

    • #

      S. Aust. has 1447 MW of rated wind turbines. With the current frontal systems production of up to about 80% has been achieved. However, equally over the past few months production as low as 5% has been also noted. For example production hovered between 5 and 20 % for the first four days of the month before going up higher.

      Is it really possible to run the country on 50% renewables when half of the production can vary between 5 and 80% of capacity over a matter of three of four days? But this is the manifesto of the major parties, 100% renewable energy by whenever.

      40

    • #
      RoHa

      Electricity prices are due to rise here in Qld as well. Too late to save the rat, though.

      30

      • #

        While this seems like just a price rise for the cost of electricity, it’s a direct Government tax placed on electricity, as all the money raised goes straight to the Queensland Government.

        Now a price rise for the cost of electricity is ‘spruiked’ by the Government as being only tiny when it comes to the cost of a residential power bill, perhaps just a minute amount of only a cent or two per KWH, nothing really.

        Queensland consumes 63TWH of power per year, so for every one cent per KWH (nothing, eh, barely 3% even) rise in the cost of electricity, then that one cent per KWH equates to $630 MILLION per year, straight into Government coffers.

        Tony.

        61

  • #
    handjive

    14 June, 2016: Antarctic CO2 Hit 400 PPM For First Time in 4 Million Years

    14 June, 2016: Record cold in Antarctica – In Vostok, temperature of -80.3 degrees was recorded.
    Coldest since observations began. Meteonovosti.ru

    Google translate:

    Record cold in Antarctica

    IA “Meteonovosti” / 11:24 Wednesday, June 15

    The most icy area of ​​the globe is in Antarctica, where a number of meteorological stations.
    One of them is “East” Russian station, where on a regular basis, our polar winter.
    The temperature in this part of Antarctica in winter and summer otritsatelnaya.V currently working explorers in the pitch darkness, as with the polar night in winter and comes in Antarctica.

    Indicators of the thermometer, which were taken on June 14 of this year were extremely low for the entire observation period. It was recorded temperature of -80.3 °
    . . .
    Further evidence carbon (sic) does not retain heat.

    51

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘Further evidence carbon (sic) does not retain heat.’

      Interesting observation, the Southern Ocean carbon sink was only recently reactivated.

      20

      • #
        handjive

        h/t: el gordo:

        SEPTEMBER 11, 2015: Southern Ocean ‘sink’ turns the tide on climate change alarm

        “CSIRO Southern Ocean expert Steve Rintoul, who was not part of the research team, said the new analysis showed the strength of the Southern Ocean carbon sink varied with time more strongly than expected.

        “The weakening and strengthening of the Southern Ocean carbon sink reflects changes in ocean temperature and carbon dioxide driven by variations in the winds blowing on the ocean surface,” Dr Rintoul said.”

        30

  • #
    Mal

    Every 65 million years there is mass species extinction where 95% of species are wiped out. What’s new?

    20

  • #
    pat

    Drudge has put up iceagenow links for:

    RECORD COLD ANTARCTICA…
    -80.3°…

    but i can’t open the link…seems too many trying to access the website.

    as for ABC –

    14 Jun: ABC Life Matters: Ellen Fanning: Who is living off the grid?
    Just 2% of Australians live off the grid; many by choice, some by necessity.
    What are the realities and the compromises that come with powering your life from the sun?
    Guests:
    Jill Redwood, Living off the grid for more than 30 years
    Bronwyn Adcock, Journalist
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/who-is-living-off-the-grid/7475472

    basically, they can’t use power tools, irons, hair dryers, clothes dryers, use wood-fired stoves and heating, a windmill burned out twice because of high wind. one spent fifty thousand because getting power to the house from the grid would cost $100,000, no mention of solar having a finite lifespan requiring purchasing everything again, but ABC audience texts the programs all excited.

    the guests, one old ABC friend, as happens so often:

    Abut ***Bronwyn Adcock
    Bronwyn is an award winning Australian journalist and writer with 14 years experience. She has worked as a radio current affairs reporter and radio documentary maker for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as a video journalist for the international affairs program Dateline on SBS Television Australia, and as a freelance writer…

    plus one ABC media darling:

    2015: ABC: Environment group to go to police over ‘recklessly provocative’ behaviour by logging supporters
    An environment group called Knitting Nannas of Toolangi is taking a complaint of intimidation to police after a logging truck drove past one of their gatherings at an “unacceptably high speed” last week, north of Melbourne…
    ***Jill Redwood from another group, Environment East Gippsland, said it was the loggers “giving the finger” to environmental groups.
    “It was recklessly provocative and shows total contempt for community values and the concerns about our forests,” she said.
    “It was put up the same day I and two other groups were meeting with department [Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning] to start process of working out giant tree prescriptions [to protect them],” she said…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-27/environment-groups-go-to-police-over-alleged-intimidation-by-lo/6886638

    10

  • #
    RoHa

    Species come and species go. I can’t get really worked up about a rat.

    20

  • #
    pat

    PICS: 14 Jun: HuffPo Weird News: Chris D’Angelo: It Just Snowed On Hawaii’s Big Island
    Pack your swimsuit AND your parka.
    Residents of Hawaii’s Big Island woke on Tuesday to find the summit of Mauna Kea volcano dusted with a fresh layer of summer snow.
    Considered both the world’s tallest volcano and its tallest mountain (when measured from the ocean floor), Mauna Kea occasionally sees snow. But a storm in mid-June is relatively bizarre.
    The National Weather Service in Honolulu said the dusting resulted from a combination of passing precipitation and “cold upper level temperatures.”…
    The mountain’s weather is extremely unpredictable, according to the Mauna Kea Weather Center.
    “A calm sunny day may quickly become treacherous with hurricane force winds and blizzard conditions,” a MKWC statement warns. “Summit winds above 120 mph are not uncommon. Snowstorms have even occurred during the summer months.”…
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hawaii-summer-snow-2016_us_57606bb4e4b09c926cfd5c5b

    nothing to see here…it’s just weather.

    30

  • #
    RoHa

    James Grainger, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

    10

  • #
    ATheoK

    Some minor (i.e. major), problems with their claims.

    • A) Dilettante’s visiting some isolated breakwater for a few hours daily does not represent any version of a legitimate search. Let them camp for a couple of weeks and see if any get bitten.

    • B) One good sized Australian reptile could’ve easily eaten up the rats, or a couple of dingoes.

    • C) Climate is a description for Earth’s weather over a substantial period of time. i.e. there is no operative action in Earth’s climate that specifically kills. That would have to be some version of a weather event that has the power to kill.

    • D) To make said weather events climate requires that there be a substantial period of time that specific deadly weather occurred.

    So what killed the rats, if they truly are dead?
    Lightning strikes for 18 months?
    Long significantly colder frozen winters?
    Long significantly hotter summers?
    An everlasting storm similar to Jupiter’s great spot?

    Just because some researcher dilettantes can’t find, nor do they know what happened to a bunch of rats; doesn’t give the dilettantes any rationale to blame climate, paganism, or the hidden hungers of WWF and Greenpeas paid volunteers.

    50

  • #
    pat

    a little more of that global warming:

    PICS: 15 Jun: KOMO News: Scott Sistek: Hiking in a winter wonderland? It’s snowing in the Cascades
    Snow is falling above about 4,000 feet with web cameras up in the mountains showing surreal winter-like scenes…
    In the lowlands, temperatures were stuck in the 50s, threatening to be among the coldest Flag Day’s on record. Seattle’s coldest June 14 was 57 degrees set in 1946…
    The chilly temperatures are being caused by a massive trough of low pressure that is bringing very chilly air in from the north. In fact, the weather balloon launched from Forks early Tuesday morning recorded a temperature of -30C (-22F) at 18,000 feet — several degrees cooler than readings in northern Canada…
    In fact, it appears the Forks’ reading was the coldest upper air reading in all of North America, including those inside the Arctic Circle! (Click to enlarge the pic or here to download it.)…
    http://komonews.com/weather/scotts-weather-blog/hiking-in-a-winter-wonderland-its-snowing-in-the-cascades

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    If this rat was so rare, why wasn’t there a conservation program?

    30

  • #
    ROM

    OK, its way off topic but we all need a laugh occasionally , sometimes a good laugh at another stupidity by those who think and believe they know much better than the rest of us.

    Via the GWPF;

    And Hunt and Talcum, maybe you should take a couple of minutes to read this too.
    Shorten is excused as he couldn’t get past reading “Cap” without a lot of mental stress.

    PRICING CARBON
    Cap and Trade Calamity in California

    California’s foray into the world of regional carbon markets hasn’t been the grand success it was promised to be.
    As the Sacramento Bee reports, a recent auction of carbon credits brought in a paltry 2 percent of the revenues it was expected to generate:
    &
    That’s not the only issue with California’s cap and trade system, though.
    As the Sacramento Bee reports, the revenues generated by this scheme were meant to go towards programs aimed at reducing the state’s emissions, but predictably have been earmarked for politicians’ pet projects:
    Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, in seeking a state audit of how cap-and-trade money is spent, supported by a coalition of business groups, termed it – accurately – “a feeding frenzy for a multitude of pet projects.”

    One of the biggest is the bullet train, which is guaranteed a quarter of carbon auction proceeds, even though the Legislature’s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, warns that it would not, in fact, generate any net emission reduction by 2020.

    Pork barrel politics is colliding head on with starry-eyed green policymaking in California, and the result isn’t pretty.
    The fact that this latest quarterly auction generated such dismal revenues is only the beginning of the state’s cap-and-trade problems.

    50

  • #
    CriddleDog

    One less rat for Kevin Rudd to………harass! 🙂

    11

  • #

    […] The Facts in response from Jo Nova […]

    00

  • #
    Steve Borodin

    It’s a pity the Guardian wasn’t wiped out instead of the rat. There is no justice!

    01

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    A rat you say. Well I don’t like to see a species disappear but if one has to go, make it a rat. They carry disease, including rabies, they raid anything they can find of yours to eat themselves and to top it all off, they look like the thugs of the animal world — unsavory to say the least about them. They even hide like thugs do.

    I’ll not say good riddance. But I’ll not weep either. And consider — this was certainly a natural thing, not manmade.

    11

  • #
    ScotstsmaninUtah

    Extinct or merely AWOL

    With so many researchers watching these poor little guys on such a small island, to make sure that they were all accounted for ….
    It would not surprise me if they had watched the 1962 movie “A Slow Boat to China” and made their way to freedom in an effort just to avoid the annoying researchers !

    00

  • #
    M Conroy

    Well, the Bramble Rat may not be extinct, as they weren’t certain that Bramble Cay was the only place the rat lived.
    Emphasis below is mine.

    https://www.environment.gov.au/resource/recovery-plan-bramble-cay-melomys-melomys-rubicola
    “Species

    Bramble Cay melomys, Melomys rubicola, a small rodent of uncertain origins, is morphologically distinct from other Australian melomys. With a population of less than 100 individuals inhabiting a single small sand cay whose existence is threatened by erosion, the Bramble Cay melomys is one of the most threatened mammals in Australia. Speculation exists that the species may also occur in Papua New Guinea (PNG) given the close proximity of the cay to the Fly River region, or on other islands in the Torres Strait. Further survey work on these islands and PNG along with clarification of its taxonomic status in relation to PNG species is required.

    Current species status

    The small population size and the naturally unstable nature of Bramble Cay has led to the species being listed as ‘Endangered’ under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and ‘Endangered’ under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA).

    Habitat and distribution summary

    Bramble Cay is a small (approximately 5ha), vegetated sand cay surrounded by reef and located in the far northeast of the Torres Strait, about 50km from the mouth of the Fly River in PNG. Vegetation consists of low herbaceous cover to about 40cm in height. It is intermittently broken by bare patches of compacted guano depressions that hold water during the wet season. Bramble Cay melomys appear to primarily inhabit the vegetated portion of the cay, an area of about 2.2ha. Eleven plant species have been recorded however composition varies from year to year. Bramble Cay is also the largest nesting site of green turtles in the Torres Strait and supports the only large seabird colony in the region.

    Threats summary
    1.Erosion of the cay is the major threat to the species survival. The cay is in a state of flux with its movements strongly influenced by the prevailing weather patterns. While there appears to have been a net loss of the cay in recorded history, recent measurements suggest the cay might be in a depositional phase. Erosion may be compounded by high winds, wave action and storm surges associated with cyclones.
    2.The introduction of exotic predators or weeds to the cay could potentially be catastrophic, given the small and vulnerable nature of the melomys population. The cay’s isolation, close proximity to PNG and its use as an anchorage by fishing boats means there is a threat of pest and/or disease establishment. Two weed species are already present.
    3.Genetic analysis of this species reveals a level of inbreeding which theoretically could lead to inbreeding depression and ultimately extinction.”

    Please also note that this information is from the Aussie Enviro people and was easily found and accessed even -after- all the newsy headlines appeared, so the newsy people didn’t even bother to look up the basic facts about how precarious the Bramble Cay Melomys’s situation was to start with.

    00