While we’re not feeling the heat like we did over the Angry Summer, Australia’s record-breaking heat wave actually hasn’t stopped:
Australia’s year of extreme weather is continuing as Sydney enjoys its longest late-season hot spell in 26 years, inland temperature records tumble and regions around Perth prepare for a cyclonic-strength storm.
The Harbour City is 17 days into its stretch of 20-degree or warmer days, with seven more days of such weather possible, said Brett Dutschke, senior meteorologist for Weatherzone.
Only once in 150 years of records – in 1987 – has the city had such warm conditions lasting this long this late in the year, Dr Dutschke said.
Many other regions have been experiencing unseasonably warm weather this month, with more to come. Melbourne, for instance, can expect five days of 20 degrees or warmer days, starting Wednesday.
Adelaide, meanwhile, may get five days of 25 degrees or hotter conditions starting today, a spell not seen this late in a year since 1921, Dr Dutschke said.Australia has experienced a string of heatwaves, roughly six weeks apart, for the past half-year or longer, climate experts at the Bureau of Meteorology say.
Those hot spells produced the hottest month on record, the hottest summer and a blitz of other national heat records.
Five of the bureau’s 112 long-term weather sites have already registered all-time May records, with towns such as Alice Springs in the middle of what forecasters expect will be the longest run of 30-degree or hotter days.
“It’s a lack of strong cold frontal systems pushing cold air into the continent,” Blair Trewin, senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said. “Most of the fronts that are occurring are being deflected south of the continent.
“We are clearly going to be a long, long way above average [for the month], nationally, as of the 11th to 12th of May.”
In addition to the warmth, “huge swathes of the country have had no rain this month”, he said.
A third of Queensland has already been declared in drought conditions and many parts of south-eastern Australia are recording rainfall far below average for the crucial crop-planting season.
The records to fall include some beyond the shores. Sea-surface temperatures along almost all of the southern coastal, for instance, and around most of Tasmania were the highest on record in the first four months of 2013, the weather bureau said.
The Australian Financial Review (not the most left leaning paper) reports large parts of WA are caught in the grip of a drought suffering the effects of – wait for it – climate change.
Watching the Deniers 
America is currently experiencing unusually cold weather, so severe it may affect global food supplies.
e.g. http://www.farmingahead.com.au/News/agricultural/01/05/2013/187445/big-chill-damaging-us-grain-crops
I guess thats global warming as well…
That’s what scientists are starting to say, yes.
For an example, see Cohen et al. (2012) Arctic warming, increasing snow cover and widespread boreal winter cooling:
Instead of insinuating that there is some sort of problem with “climate science” (aka trolling), you would do better to do some reading.
Science and the real world would be so much simpler if it fit our preconceptions.
Idiot!
That’s what scientists are starting to say, yes.
In other words, the science isn’t settled?
If the validity of the model is validated by its predictive skill, then its not doing very well, is it?
If a theory can always be “adjusted” to fit any new circumstance, then it cannot be falsified. Theories which cannot be falsified are not scientific.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Simplistic stuff again Eric. AGW is not derived from modern climate models…it is based on the physics of increasing GHGs. It fundamentally predicts system warming,and times passage has confirmed it is the right call. All the predictions of directions of change in major system components have got the sign right,while the rate and amount of change in each varies. That is sufficiently settled science.
Fundamental AGW theory can be falsified…but the basic physics is right and FAGW is proven.
Climate models are not The Theory. They are not proving/falsifying AGW,they look at details on the journey.
Climate models are built to try and understand climate and it modes and details,with a view to tighten spatial and temporal details of change to match modes and characteristics of climate observed by data accumulation like the ENSO,the MJO and etc. They are working in an environment in which every nuance of natural variability,while often recognised in potential,is not always known.
Gross prediction of AGW and fine detail prediction of change are different things. The ‘model’ that adding GHG would warm the planet and change climate is proven. The models of smaller scale change and effect on modes are less effective at defining changes,but the simple overarching theory always predicted that this would be challenging.
Some of the physics – e.g. the basic forcing from CO2 – is easy to calculate, and experimentally verifiable.
Other parts, such as the response of the climate system to additional CO2 forcing, is based on a mess of unverified assumptions, such as the (missing) equatorial tropospheric hotspot.
Alarmists generally talk up difficulties with detection apparatus, or (as in the AR5 example below) try to sweep it under the carpet. No need to let a contradictory observation interfere with a beautiful theory.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/ipcc-plays-hot-spot-hidey-games-in-ar5-denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly/
Celebrating short term strategies again in lieu of a long term plan,Eric? Cleverness with a use-by date…
Feel free to list the ‘mess’ of assumptions any time Eric…and don’t mention the stratosphere,eh?
Eric says:
If CO2 were an inefficacious forcing, we would be stuck in a glacial. The unverified assumptions are your own. Glacial terminations under only spatial/seasonal insolation change (orbital/Milankovitch forcing) do not work unless the initial insolation change entrains a sequence of strongly positive feebacks including GHG feedback.
Very roughly:
– Deglaciation is initially triggered by increasing summer insolation at high NH latitudes
– Freshwater flux from ice melt at high NH latitude inhibits NADW formation; halts AMOC
– Equator -> NH poleward ocean heat transport significantly reduced and NH high latitudes *cool* as the NH “heat sink” is turned off
– But the SH ocean *warms*, as it must
– CO2 release from SH subsea reservoirs by warming deep waters *globalises* warming and NH high latitude ice melt resumes
– Strong, positive ice-albedo feedback re-engaged; deglaciation continues until interglacial quasi-equilibrium reached
You cannot take CO2 forcing (and the amplifying positive WV feedback) out of this process and still get a glacial termination. But they happen, over and over again. This demonstrates that the estimated efficacy of CO2 forcing is reasonably accurate and that the climate system is indeed moderately sensitive.
If you had a better understanding of paleoclimate behaviour, you would see how badly mistaken many of your assumptions are.
* * *
Shakun et al. (2012)
“In other words, the science isn’t settled?”
That’s right, scientists don’t yet know all the disastrous consequences of global warming. So what?
“denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly”
Strawman alert.
If Shell has conceded Anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of current global warming and the reason for their world wide switch to natural gas, why would a posturing “look at me” born again RW blogger claim otherwise?
Shell has been in bed with the CRU, or at least flirting with them, for a long time.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0962818260.txt
Mike [Hulme, CRU]
Had a very good meeting with Shell yesterday. Only a minor part of the
agenda, but I expect they will accept an invitation to act as a strategic
partner and will contribute to a studentship fund though under certain
conditions. I now have to wait for the top-level soundings at their end
after the meeting to result in a response. We, however, have to discuss
asap what a strategic partnership means, what a studentship fund is, etc,
etc. By email? In person?
The suggestion that big oil, particularly companies like Shell, are somehow “opposed” to climate alarmism, has always been a joke.
Big oil would in no way be disadvantaged by carbon pricing – if anything, it would increase their profits.
Just like paying for garbage disposal increases profits. Wait… what?
DS, its not like any oil exec seriously believes people will be able to live without their product in the forseeable future.
And carbon pricing means worthless depleted assets, such as empty oil wells, are suddenly valuable carbon sequestration resources.
Their vast cash reserves also give them plenty of scope for gaming the market.
Several of the merchant banks I worked for run large shipping fleets. They play all sorts of games with the market – for example, if the price of oil is too low, they often park their tankers at sea, until the price hits the right level for them to make a profit. They even care about the temperature on the delivery day – oil is priced by volume, and hydrocarbons experience significant thermal expansion. The player with the better weather forecasting skill can make a substantial profit.
Adding carbon pricing and sequestration projects just gives them a lot of new financial toys to play with, to extract cash from the mugs.
“They even care about the temperature on the delivery day – oil is priced by volume, and hydrocarbons experience significant thermal expansion.”
They must be selling to fools then.
Yes it is. It is because part of the North polar ice cap is gone, melted.
Hi Eric,
It’s climate change.
The U.S. had a record hot summer and widespread drought, followed by a severe winter.
These wild swings from extreme hot to cold are not good for agriculture. Things are only going to get worse as the affects of climate change deepen.
South Australia has had a run of dry weather starting in the middle of August last year. Some stations in the Adelaide Hills have had the driest summer ever recorded.
We are hoping to get some useful rain soon.
Eric’s comment is clearly off topic here and is one of his classic troll topics. You’re welcome to delete it and then the adults can have some real discussions.
It would be hilariously narrow minded to bring up unusually warm weather in Australia as part of the “new normal”, yet to exclude any mention of unusually cold weather which is occurring simultaneously somewhere else – especially as you guys now claim that is evidence for “global warming” as well.
I see.
What a great explanation! – it is “weather”. i.e. simply part of the normal ups and downs that we experience on a day-to-day basis.
Therefore, all those records across the continent are nothing to worry about.
Everything should be ok by tomorrow.
Except, “tomorrow” never seems to come !!!
Atmospheric blocking,affecting weather [weather regimes] is a topic of increasing importance,and was discussed in AR4 Chapters 3 & 8. ‘Locked’ weather,frozen patterns,call it what you will,is anticipated.It’s inevitable that some of these blockings will involve cold events,,,but in the long run–which is what the whole IPCC synthesis is about–cool events will be outnumbered by warm.
This is the frequency increase of extreme summer (JJA) hot events (NH, land*) 1951 – 2011. (figure only). This is where weather becomes climate – on multi-decadal time-scales. You are witnessing the birth of the new normal.
Wake up, Eric.
* * *
Source: Public perception of climate change and the new climate dice, Hansen, Sato, Ruedy (2012).
From the abstract:
* Yes, I know Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere – but it is on the same planet under the same atmosphere surrounded by the same global ocean as the NH. We can safely assume the laws of physics operate consistently on a global scale.
It would be narrow-minded of you to deny the emergence of both types of new normal. AGW = increasing extremes of climate = hardship and cost.
This is the frequency increase of extreme summer (JJA) hot events (NH, land) 1951 – 2011. (figure only). This is where weather becomes climate – on multi-decadal time-scales. You are witnessing the birth of the new normal at both ends of the scale (Cohen et al. 2012).
Wake up, Eric.
Source for figure above: Public perception of climate change and the new climate dice, Hansen, Sato & Ruedy (2012).
From the abstract:
Apologies for repetition above and thanks to Mike for retrieving another two-link comment from moderation!
Shorter Eric: it’s cold in America so it must be cold in Queensland and WA, too.
I’m actually suggesting weather is just weather.
Eric – please go and do a basic course in climate science.
There you will learn the difference between weather and climate.
I already know the difference Dr No.
Warm weather is climate, cold weather is just weather – unless an alarmist finds a way to incorporate it into their latest adjusted theory.
Tell us all wise one: When does weather become climate?
When Al Gore says so?
Weather is the deviations from the baseline of climate.
Deniars can’t cope.
One might wonder if there is a link between the strengthening of the circumpolar winds in the southern ocean and the lack of cold fronts hitting southern Australia? http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00729.1
From your link, Significant summer warming over the eastern Antarctic Peninsula in the last 50 years has been attributed to a strengthening of the circumpolar westerlies, widely believed to be anthropogenic in origin.
So attribution to anthropogenic influences on climate seems at the very least to be a little speculative.
In the absence of another explanation it must be, at least, plausible.
Yet again you fail to understand the nature of scientific communication, and yet again you deflect and fail to address the actual question. I asked if there is a potential link between the strengthening in the circumpolar winds and the failure of cold fronts to cross the Australian landscape. Your continued trolling is boring and adds nothing of value. If you don’t wish to address my actual question, I would ask you to do the polite thing and refrain from trying to hijack the thread.
Solar activity hit an 8000 year peak in the late 20th century, according to NOAA (link available on request – that 1 link limit).
There is increasing research into a link between solar activity and the jetstream.
This is a press release – I’ll see if I can dig up the paper when I’ve got a moment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8615789.stm
So guessing that CO2 is responsible because its the only thing you can think of is not exactly the rigorous approach.
Hopefully that link is different than the one you used the last time you trolled on this topic which said “Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades. “.
The people who wrote that are proponents of CO2 theory DS. Its their observation of unusually high solar activity I was interested in highlighting.
Given the increasing evidence for a link between solar activity and cloud cover, and other unusual interactions between solar activity and Earth (e.g. EUV / thermosphere) which are only starting to be explored, its a little premature to rule out a larger role for the sun.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/15jul_thermosphere/
Yeah, you highlighted their observation right after you linked to an article titled “Low solar activity link to cold UK winters” and “forgot” to compare these forcings to the much larger forcing due to our greenhouse gas emissions.
Your next link to NASA also says:
… he discovered that the thermospheric collapse of 2008-2009 was not only bigger than any previous collapse, but also bigger than the sun alone could explain. One possible explanation is carbon dioxide (CO2). When carbon dioxide gets into the thermosphere, it acts as a coolant, shedding heat via infrared radiation. It is widely-known that CO2 levels have been increasing in Earth’s atmosphere. Extra CO2 in the thermosphere could have magnified the cooling action of solar minimum. …
Nonsense. Scientists have explored interactions between solar activity and the upper atmosphere for decades.
I’ve linked multiple peer-reviewed studies showing that solar contributions to warming are smaller than human contributions. You just started babbling about eugenics. So there’s no point in talking to you. You’re just a troll.
Here’s that babbling, so there’s no need to inflict it on others again.
From BBD’s link earlier:-
Click to access 1748-9326_7_1_014007.pdf
The most up to date consensus from global climate models predicts warming in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) high latitudes to middle latitudes during boreal winter. However, recent trends in observed NH winter surface temperatures diverge from these projections. For the last two decades, large-scale cooling trends have existed instead across large stretches of eastern North America and northern Eurasia. We argue that this unforeseen trend is probably not due to internal variability alone.
Not really that settled then, is it?
And an unsettling development,eh? AGW is settled,some of the regional details are not….as freely discussed by climate science,hence the IPCC process of regular reports. You understand,or still playing dumb?
Where are the accusations that the temperature records have been doctored by those conniving, conspiring, contemptible people at the Bureau of Meteorology? Denialists continually disgrace themselves by making these claims – but appear to have gone quiet lately.
Otherwise, I would again love to hear them try and explain these unusual events.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1225026120.txt
Yeah, it wasn’t so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used
to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a
longer – 10 year – period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you
might expect from La Nina etc.
Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also.
Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I
give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects
and the recent cold-ish years.
As I said, I love hearing these half-baked, amateur-hour, armchair-expert attempts at research.
What else have you got?
Other than evidence of your climate heroes openly discussing adjusting the presentation of their data among themselves, to emphasise their narrative?
Ah-ha. The old “manipulating the data” argument.
I was waiting for this since I have it on “good authority” that the solar activity data has also been doctored. After all, how can you refer to solar activity peaks prior to the instrumental record. Who really knows what the sun was doing 100 years ago.?
The data is just made up to detract from the effect of greenhouse gases.
Can you present an email between scientists discussing doctoring the data?
Thought not.
Here’s another good one.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0933255789.txt
Speaker is Adam Markham, from the WWF, telling Mike Hulme of the CRU what the CSIRO would like him to say, to avoid embarrassing the more alarmist CSIRO.
… I wanted to pass on the gist of what they’ve said to me so
far.
They are worried that this may present a slightly more conservative
approach to the risks than they are hearing from CSIRO. In particular,
they would like to see the section on variability and extreme events
beefed up if possible. They regard an increased likelihood of even 50%
of drought or extreme weather as a significant risk. Drought is also a
particularly importnat issue for Australia, as are tropical storms. …
An email about heresay about not doctoring data. I’m truly impressed, Eric.
How much longer do we have to put up with this bullshit, Mike?
Was that post about doctoring data or discussing differences of opinion about future risks ?
Seems a poor reply to me.
Dr No, openly discussing cutting off a few points in a presentation, to give a misleading impression of confidence in the theory the scientist doing the cutting was trying to present, is pretty bad form for a scientist.
Or perhaps I’m being naive – is that the kind of thing you do as well?
We have been over that email before Eric. You have ignored the wash up of that discussion.
Would that be the whitewash? OR is one of you scientist types happy to describe when it is appropriate to remove points from the end of a graph, when the graph starts trending in a direction which is inconvenient for your narrative?
Give examples of when you did it.
I’m sure you will attempt to justify your claim,Err-ic.
I can leave off as many points as I like for a presentation.
What I cannot do is change the raw data – after all, that is the point of the discussion is’nt it?
Or are you too hyperactive to concentrate on one point for too long?
Forget greenhouse gases, forget solar activity, forget data manipulation, forget natural variability.
The answer is MAGNETISM according to Thomas Watson, an 83-year-old Australian from Victoria.
It must be true because he has co-written several papers and comments on global warming and sea level rise in a number of specialist science journals around the world with another Australian researcher, Alberto Boretti.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/04/28/ufos-sea-level-rise-and-magnetism-climate-science-denial
Always find you guys quoting desmogblog, a site funded by convicted money launderer John Lefebvre, to be rather amusing.
Here’s a good one – from desmogblog’s own site.
http://www.desmogblog.com/desmogger-caught-climategate-emails
Link demonstrates you’re spinning madly as ever.
Desmogblog also applauded Gleick’s identity theft. Makes sense I guess – a site financed by a convicted money launderer wouldn’t have a reason to be upset by simple identity theft.
I applaud Gleick’s actions! Look at what was revealed: attempts to degrade the US education system,publicity shy funders of disinformation and Bob Carter lying about funding. Civil disobedience is important.
You will condemn Heartland for employing convicted fraud Jay Lehr [and he actually defrauded the taxpayer] as a science expert,any time now.
And of course you will disown the stolen filtered collated and mischievously interpreted email cache, as you are too honorable to exploit such material…any time now.
You can believe in my new theory of Magnetism! or not
You can believe in supposed identity fraud or not
You can believe a supposed “money launderer” or not
Make up your mind
Adelaide recorded the hottest May temperature ever yesterday , we are not talking just about unusually hot, we are seeing records falling.
I have a relative who is a sceptic, “how does the heavier than air CO2 get up there”
this person is a university trained electronics wiz.
showed him a graph of the Arctic and the possibility that it will go ice free for at least one day in the next few years and become seasonally ice free decades before best projections.
His reply “does that matter?’
Just ignore eric mike, it is the same broken record every thread,
Again, that was the hottest May temperature ever recorded for Adelaide.
Highest ever? According to the BOM the highest max in Adelaide occurred in 1921 (May 4) and at 32.3 extended yesterday’s max. But then 1921 was forever ago, wasn’t it?
I wonder what CO2 demons caused that high…all those T-models I guess.
Yes, but they didn’t know how to adjust data properly back then… 🙂
If you genuinely reject the need to review data,Eric,you will doubtless be able to explain and justify your views….doubtless. Any time now…
Sound like two frogs in a beaker of water that is being heated from below.
Yesterday was 31.1 degrees in Adelaide. At 1.00 pm today the temperature is already 29 degrees in Adelaide. I wonder if it will get hotter later in the day.
Yeah, well. They were pretty stupid in those days. They couldn’t even read a thermometre. Always erred on the high side as well. Which is why the good folk at GISS etc were reluctantly forced to lower the numbers in the raw data.
Baseless and cynical comment,Mark. Why don’t you explore some of the sci-lit on adjustments,and the history and standardisation of temp recording?
Cynical – yes. Baseless – no.
wow, why didn’t I think of that!! Struth, this constant refrain that if I don’t agree with you I must be ill-informed. The sheer arrogance.
I’m perfectly well aware of why adjustments need to be made. I have looked at it quite closely. Who can forget the debacle of the NZ adjustments? Or the Swedish? But while I’m well aware of the need to adjust, no one has ever adequately explained why a large majority of pre-1950 records are adjusted down.
And to forestall the next part of your play-book, no I’m not alleging conspiracy. I just think there is a confirmation bias. Adjustments that result in a lower warming trend through the 20th century are closely vetted whereas adjustments that result in a higher trend rate are accepted as just what you’d expect.
What ,the ‘debacle’ of the NZ adjustments that all actually make sense…station moves and discontinuities accounted for…the idiots who challenged NIWA have to pay costs. They failed to establish a case,and I don’t think we should ask them why the mass balance of NZ glaciers is on the slide,eh?
You have of course seen comparisons between unadjusted and adjusted data sets?
What about BEST?
That well-known Koch-funded, sceptical reanalysis of land surface temperature? The one that confirms and validates all land surface temperature reconstructions (CRUtem; GISS Ts, NOAA land etc).
Also please note that GISTEMP is “open source” climate research. Data and code are in the public domain and all revisions to the data-set are documented. There is no fiddling. That is a lie peddled by fake sceptics and embraced by paranoid conspiracy theorists whose grip on reality is already very shaky indeed.
To be clear, the above was addressed to Mark.
Who said:
Not in BEST. It specifically set out to *check* the existing temperature reconstructions with a properly sceptical eye. And it ended up confirming and validating them.
Yet here you are, going on about “adjustments”. This is a tactic I find particularly irritating:
“Of course I’m not suggesting that there’s been any fiddling. Nobody seriously thinks there’s been any “adjustments”. Or any fiddling or any inadvertent distortion of the data or any fiddling or anything like scientific misconduct. Of course not. I really don’t think there’s been any fiddling at all, so don’t accuse me of saying that there has been any fiddling“.
It’s a cheap politician’s/lawyer’s trick.
Drought in northern Australia is the new normal? Bugger. And just when the coalition is talking about building dams up there.
Well I guess, as Mr Flannery opined last time draught was the new normal “even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”. We all know how well that prediction worked out.
Yet another who hasn’t read the full transcript of the Flannery interview? This has been debunked several times at this blog but you know, we’re always ready for another misinformed soul such as yourself to come in here and spout this popular denier meme. You see, it’s all about context. http://indifferencegivesyouafright.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/tim-flannery-did-not-say-australias-dams-would-never-fill-again/
Yes, I’m aware of the ‘context’ and I’m aware of the rather feeble attempts to spin the ‘context’ so as to salvage a modicum of face for our alarmist-in-chief. Just because you and others have asserted that Flannery didn’t say what he did say, doesn’t debunk the fact that he said what he said and only resiled from it once the rains started falling and the dams started filling.
So you’re aware of the context but choose to ignore it or fail to understand it. Why, oh clever one with the IQ starting with a 1 (two digits or three I wonder), do denier sights quote mine the interview for that one line and never show or link to the full context I wonder?
Flannery did not ‘resile’ from his comments,why would he,they were conditional and caveated,which has gone right over your head it seems….Mark,stop BSing.
“draught was the new normal “
If it is going to be dry, I would prefer to drink my beer out of a bottle 🙂
Mark is another patsy for the News Ltd bullies…cannot do any better than regurgitate their act,Mark?
No one here has asserted that “he did not say what he did say”…we have pointed out that News Bullies elide the ‘mays’ and ‘ifs’, and seek to misrepresent Flannery as the originator of these views rather than being the messenger for others research in many of those interviews.
And Flannery made just a few remarks in wide ranging interviews five years ago,which are then re-run, shorne of context, at least every fortnight in a News Ltd.
outlet somewhere…. really,you should be ashamed at the way you are being played by Murdoch.
Flannery bashing is one of the low points of media behavior in Australia.
Oh, I see. Flannery was just the gullible mouth-piece. Regurgitating someone else’s well research conclusions. Wow, no wonder the government is in so much debt when it can afford to pay $200K salaries to mere messengers.
Of course, these ‘others’ were wrong. The dams did fill. I wonder who these wrong ‘others’ were? Presumably scientists from the ‘settled’ consensus. Every time we look at the full Warragamba we see just how ‘settled’ things are.
But you are right. Flannery wasn’t the only one to tell governments things of which they were absolutely sure but which turned out to be utter bunkum. That’s why we’ve got 4 mothballed desal plants across the nation (or is it 5, who can keep up with the profligacy of the AGW spruikers).
Just once, just once I’d like to see a member of the we’re-all-gunna-die crowd admit to a failed prediction. Just once. Own up that sea levels may not rise by 100 metres or that Manhatten didn’t go under, or that the Maldives are doing fine, or that Tuvulians aren’t drowning. Just once.
Indeed if Flannery had’ve come out years ago and fessed up that indeed he was wrong and he’d try to be more circumspect in the future, then the constant baiting of him would long since ceased. But instead the consensus et al always try to brazen it through, never allowing that the(ir) science may not be entirely correct.
Mark,you are confused and wrong. Do you read at all?
Here’s one example:Flannery did not say we would run out of water unconditionally…he said that at the rate of extraction of the time and with then-current inflows and if really significant rain did not fall,Sydney would be out of water two years from the date of his interview.
That’s a simple statement of a scenario that fortunately was avoided. Why? Sydney Water introduced very effective water rationing,dropping per capita use. Very heavy rain returned just in time.
All that is forgotten,and to News Ltd ‘s professional morons,Flannery said we’d run out of water End of story
Flannery’s comments about the future difficulty of filling dams was a discussion of climate projections of the next seventy years. To News Ltd’s professional liars,it became a present certainty.
Re seas rise 100m, Robyn Williams did not predict that at all…he made that remark in context of the total rise assumed possible with the complete thawing of all-land ice…once again suckered by Andrew Bolt who is lucky to have only two convictions for defamation.
If you attempt to justify News Ltd’s approach by simply repeating their techniques,you’ll prove yourself either gullible or dishonest. Which is it,Mark?
And FYI on de-sal plants…only one is mothballed,the Tugun plant…which was very useful when flood-water degraded Brisbane drinking water quality.
Only two others are complete,Kurnell which is operating and Perth which is operating and is absolutely vital from day to day.
3 other plants are not yet operational.
No wonder you cannot figure out you’re a patsy for News Ltd
If you say so Nick. I can’t tell if you just fall for some later re-writing of history or just seek to justify these things in your mind.
On the other hand, this from the ABC transcript …and we all know the ABC hasn’t lied since, well, for ever.
None of the caveats you assert seem to be there. Curious.
Lest I be accused of taking it out of context (which seems to be a standard way of wishing away the unpalatable), here is the full transcript..
Straight out…100 metres is possible this century according to your man. Now he may have repented of that silliness and may have, elsewhere, sought to pretend he said something else, and you may have decided to accept that pretence, but we don’t all have to be so gullible.
Its not really a big deal. Anyone who takes Williams seriously deserves to be taken for a ride, But this uncompromising defence of the indefensible is just indicative of the determination of the warmoholics to fight for the theory irrespective of the facts.
Mark,you’ve missed the ‘ifs’, and the fact that the claim was not Williams‘,but one that Bolt asked him to comment on! Williams was saying it is possible not probable or likely. He quickly lost interest and wanted to return to the issue of Severinghaus v. Bolt which was the reason for the interview Saying something is possible is NOT a projection,just that he thought in some circumstance it might be feasible…. he’s very likely wrong about that,but_who_gives_a_stuff? The transcript is SIX years old,and you’re still whining about it???
Robyn Williams is a science journalist. He is not an authority on sea level rise or the next centuries projections,and he would never claim to be. He was,in that interview,more surprised at Bolt’s confidence that he was better placed to interpret a scientist’s paper than the man who wrote it. But you ignore the topic,and Bolt’s obvious bluster and hubris,and lap up that snippet which Bolt/Blair turned into bullies gold….
Six long years ago,a bit of Bolt’s diversionary counter-interrogation squeezes an incautious remark from Williams…..and you are still hung up about this meaning something? You would not have been aware of the exchange if Bolt and News Ltd bullshitters had not devoted tragically large amounts of time to promoting it in all its made-for-tabloid ‘gotcha’-ness….it’s perfect for these toads,a stick to beat an ABC employee with that vaguely has something to do with AGW.
Mark, grow the fuck up will ya!
“Saying something is possible is NOT a projection”
This is the way the denialist disfunctional mental process works, i.e. someone says there is a small probability of something, e.g. there is a 3-4% probability there was no warming in the past 16 years, and the denialist mind corrupts that into “there was NO warming in the past 16 years”.
I don’t think there is much we can do about such disfunctional minds.
“Own up that sea levels MAY not rise by 100 metres”
That’s exactly what Williams’ words meant. Obviously Mark has a comprehension problem.
Wow Nick, calm down. All that heat under the collar isn’t good for the environment dontcha know.
Actually Nick I wasn’t whining at all. I mentioned it in passing as one in a long, long line of failed AGW assertions. I didn’t even mention Williams. For all you knew I could have meant Archer or Gore or any one of the many who have tried to exaggerate the risk so as to encourage their favoured reform.
It was you who went, dalek-like, into over-drive….”kill, kill” the heretic.
Its one of the problems with the whole CAGW issue, being the perceived warmist need to defend the theory and their fellow brethren down to the very last detail even to the point of ridiculousness.
I don’t care that Williams erred or that Hansen erred or that Gore mega-erred. These people are propagandists. As I said, I’d prefer that they came out later and admit the error or admit that they’d spoken in haste so that we could move on. But the nature of the debate is that they never admit error and their followers contort themselves in knots to try to not notice the error.
I’m perfectly happy to sit back and watch it unfold. The climate will do what it does.
We’ll probably know a whole lot more in a decade. Either warming will return with a vengeance or the ‘solar’ camp will be proven right and we’ll head into something like a Dalton minimum. Or the hiatus will continue.
The only roll for those less committed to a side is to try to hold the line on economic suicide that the warmists want. Apart from some losses like the ill-fated desal plants, the job is close to done.
The jihad against CO2 is waning here and overseas. Our own frivolity in this regard will be gone within a year or two. Europe probably a little later. No one else will follow us down that dead-end. 360.org is headed the way of the Temperance League. Subsidies to renewables will be curtailed (Swan has already started the process) but scientists will continue to work on the successor to fossil fuels and, when the economics stand up, it (whatever it is) will take over.
So calm down. Your side lost. Not that anyone will admit it.:)
“I didn’t even mention Williams..” but you cut and pasted an excerpt involving him…so you DID mention Williams!
A long,long line of failed assertions? Bullshit. It’s a long,long line of repeated attacks on a few comments,and the people who made them made over ten years…The line seems long because it is the same few remarks repeated ad nauseum by professional trolls employed by News Ltd. The bullying is now so normalised that you cannot see it for what it is.
The attacks are led by anti-AGW hacks who wouldn’t know any science if it bit them on the arse. I worry for your intelligence if you can’t see the packaging,the intent and that every time News trolls repost these attacks they have prevented some more useful and informative content from being published…
You do know that Australian scientists will no longer take part in interviews with News Ltd journos because of this kind of shitty behavior? It’s time News journos started acting like journos and not drunks in the corner of the pub.
Williams is no a propagandist,he’s a science journalist with decades of experience. He is not going to fall for the bullshit science of the kind promoted by fake journalism like News Ltds. Hence he has access to the scientific world.
Hansen is no propagandist he’s a physicist/climatologist,who is now in retirement an activist. He’s a prolific analyst,author and successful administrator. Have some respect.
Gore is a propagandist,and expressly so. His views are clear and his work is to faithfully represent the science consensus.
Calling them propagandists pure and simple is childish,Mark…and ditto in representing this issue as little more than a game to be won or lost. If we BAU much more of the fossil carbon we all lose more than we gain.
Nick,
Here’s what I originally wrote:
A mere passing reference to an episode the warmists would prefer to forget. It was you who then escalated it into a full on defence of the silly old ABC propagandist.
I have a friend who has lived on Tuvalu for years, you are talking crap
Funafuti will have to be abandoned at 1 metre SLR
SLR scenarios till 2100
Not another Zombie myth from watts
One climate myth found on the internet, propagated by Anthony Watts, is that James Hansen erroneously predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater by 2008. James Hansen made his statement in response to a question by Bob Reiss, a journalist and author, in 1988. A close examination of the interview reveals Hansen did not, in fact, predict that the West Side Highway would be underwater in 20 years. Bob Reiss reports the conversation as follows:
“When I interviewed James Hansen I asked him to speculate on what the view outside his office window could look like in 40 years with doubled CO2. I’d been trying to think of a way to discuss the greenhouse effect in a way that would make sense to average readers. I wasn’t asking for hard scientific studies. It wasn’t an academic interview. It was a discussion with a kind and thoughtful man who answered the question. You can find the description in two of my books, most recently The Coming Storm.”
James Hansen reports the conversation as follows:
“Reiss asked me to speculate on changes that might happen in New York City in 40 years assuming CO2 doubled in amount.”
The book The Coming Storm and the salon.com article are different. In The Coming Storm the question includes the conditions of doubled CO2 and 40 years, while the salon.com article which is quoted by skeptics does not mention doubled CO2, and involves only 20 years.
To understand the discrepancy between these two published accounts, it helps to look at the timeline of events. The original conversation was in 1988. Ten years later, referring to his notes, Bob Reiss recounted the conversation in his book The Coming Storm. James Hansen confirmed the conversation and said he would not change a thing he said. After the book was published, Bob Reiss was talking to a journalist at salon.com about it. As he puts it,
“although the book text is correct, in remembering our original conversation, during a casual phone interview with a Salon magazine reporter in 2001 I was off in years.”
We can check back in 2028, the 40 year mark, and also when and if we reach 560 ppm CO2 (a doubling from pre-industrial levels). In the meantime, we can stop using this conversation from 1988 as a reason to be skeptical about the human origins of global warming.
“Your side lost.”
So global warming has ended?
Sure, if you say so Mark: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend
‘Warmists’ have forgotten the episode you cannot forget,Mark. You cannot forget it because you and your dim companions have nothing but bullshit of that kind to use in your infantile jabberings at News Ltd troll sites. When you bring it up here,you are mocked for your comprehension and context failures and your assinine conviction that it’s worth ‘teasing’ ‘warmists’ with trivia.
It doesn’t matter to me or arguments about AGW, it’s a burden for you that you cannot move beyond throwing dried poo with the other monkeys,despite having all that media access and scribble time courtesy of Uncle Rupert.
“even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems” in southern Australia.
Exactly right: http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content/water_storages/water_report/zoom_graph.asp
from this Link
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/ipcc-plays-hot-spot-hidey-games-in-ar5-denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly/
we get this bullshit from nova
Nova is trying to “deny“ sea level rising. Which is bullshit.
You can find that the Sea HAS risen 17cm since Australia was settled, and this has been measured and confirmed on the East and West coasts of Australia. lt was reported by `Catalyst` thoroughly, on my ABC.net.au
That`s why Nova belongs in the spam-trap Worrell.
“and their 1990 predictions have failed”
AKA, proof of failure by ancient history.
Yes, pro-Nukie bullshit is `sanitized` and white-washed.
[…] 2013/05/08: WtD: The New Normal: drought grips Queensland and WA, record making heat continues acros… […]