And yet to play out, let’s also not forget Al Gore’s 2008 prediction: “Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”
-Anthony
By Dennis Avery in the Canada Free Press
“2008 will be the hottest year in a century:” The Old Farmers’ Almanac, September 11, 2008, Hurricanes, Arctic Ice, Coral, Drinking water, Aspen skiing
We’re now well into the earth’s third straight harsher winter-but in late 2007 it was still hard to forget 22 straight years of global warming from 1976-1998. So the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicted 2008 would be the hottest year in the last 100.
But sunspots had been predicting major cooling since 2000, and global temperatures turned downward in early 2007. The sunspots have had a 79 percent correlation with the earth’s thermometers since 1860. Today’s temperatures are about on a par with 1940. For 2008, the Almanac hired a new climatologist, Joe D’Aleo, who says the declining sunspots and the cool phase of the Pacific Ocean predict 25-30 years of cooler temperatures for the planet.
“You could potentially sail, kayak or even swim to the North Pole by the end of the summer. Climate scientists say that the Arctic ice . . . is currently on track to melt sometime in 2008.” Ted Alvarez, Backpacker Magazine Blogs, June, 2008.
Soon after this prediction, a huge Russian icebreaker got trapped in the thick ice of the Northwest Passage for a full week. The Arctic ice hadn’t melted in 2007, it got blown
into warmer southern waters. Now it’s back. (Reference)
Remember too the Arctic has its own 70-year climate cycle. Polish climatologist Rajmund Przbylak says “the highest temperatures since the beginning of instrumental observation occurred clearly in the 1930s” based on more than 40 Arctic temperature stations.
(This uneducated prediction may have been the catalyst for Lewis Pugh and his absurd kayak stunt that failed miserably – Anthony)
“Australia’s Cities Will Run Out of Drinking Water Due to Global Warming.”
Tim Flannery was named Australia’s Man of the Year in 2007-for predicting that Australian cities will run out of water. He predicted Perth would become the “first 21st century ghost city,’ and that Sydney would be out of water by 2007. Today however, Australia’s city reservoirs are amply filled. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Herald-Sun reminds us Australia is truly a land of long droughts and flooding rains.
“Hurricane Effects Will Only Get Worse.” Live Science, September 19, 2008.
So wrote the on-line tech website Live Science, but the number of Atlantic hurricanes 2006-2008 has been 22 percent below average, with insured losses more than 50 percent below average. The British Navy recorded more than twice as many major land-falling Caribbean hurricanes in the last part of the Little Ice Age (1700-1850) as during the much-warmer last half of the 20th century.
“Corals will become increasingly rare on reef systems.” Dr. Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, head of Queensland University (Australia) marine studies.
In 2006, Dr. Hoegh-Guldberg warned that high temperatures might kill 30-40 percent of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef “within a month.” In 2007, he said global warming temperatures were bleaching [potentially killing] the reef.
But, in 2008, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network said climate change had not damaged the “well-managed” reef in the four years since its last report. Veteran diver Ben Cropp said that in 50 years he’d seen no heat damage to the reef at all. “The only change I’ve seen has been the result of over-fishing, pollution, too many tourists or people dropping anchors on the reef,” he said.
No More Skiing? “Climate Change and Aspen,” Aspen, CO city-funded study, June, 2007.
Aspen’s study predicted global warming would change the climate to resemble hot, dry Amarillo, Texas. But in 2008, European ski resorts opened a month early, after Switzerland recorded more October snow than ever before. Would-be skiers in Aspen had lots of winter snow-but a chill factor of 18 below zero F. kept them at their fireplaces instead of on the slopes.
*Sources:
Predictions of 25-30 year cooling due to Pacific Decadal Oscillation: Scafetta and West, 2006, “Phenomenological Solar Signature in 400 Years of Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere Temperature Record,” Geophysical Research Letters.
Arctic Warmer in the 1930s: R. Przybylak, 2000, “Temporal and Spatial Variation of Surface Air Temperature over the Period of Instrumental Observation in the Arctic,” International Journal of Climatology 20.
British Navy records of Caribbean hurricanes 1700-1850: J.B. Elsner et al., 2000, “Spatial Variations in Major U.S. Hurricane Activity,” Journal of Climate 13.
Predictions of coral loss: Hoegh-Guldberg et al., Science, Vol. 318, 2007. Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2008, issued by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, Nov., 2008.
Aspen climate change study: Climate Change and Aspen: An Assessment of Potential Impacts and Responses, Aspen Global Change Institute, June, 2007.
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Dennis T. Avery, is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute in Washington. Dennis is the Director for Global Food Issues ([url=http://www.cgfi.org]http://www.cgfi.org[/url]). He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State.
These may have been the worst of all the global warming predictions, but the average person still swallowed them hook, line and sinker.
If they’d been reading this site they would have known better.
Here is my prediction for 2009. As the evidence for man-made global warming becomes less and less reliable and valid, the predications of dire consequences for mankind due to GW will increase exponentially and become more and more absurd. I admit this is not really a predication but just a statement of fact. More akin to predicating that the sun will come up tomorrow.
Anthony, speaking of Al Gore’s prediction, any comment on this year’s arctic sea ice extent? This fall it looked like we were going to be well above average, but its dropped off recently.
Hi,
I have looked up the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, and I can’t find them saying the Great Barrier Reef is pretty much unchanged in the last 4 years. Of course, I figure it is, but I also don’t see the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network admitting it. So I am guessing that this information is buried somewhere and you have to be “Holmes” to find it. Anybody???????
Thanx,
Grant
I have been away over Christmas so maybe this question has been answered. What caused the huge spike in the unfiltered data on the ice-extent graph at Arctic ROS sea area and extent graphs in December 2008. Was it due to sensor malfunctions?
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
It regards to predictions, it might be a good time to make up a list of the predictions from 2000 about the climate over the next ten years for a end of year story next year. The worst of them might get disappeared from the net before next December.
Also an apology for misreading the caption on your weather station story of 12/25/08.
I believe people like this are called “Reverse Cassandras”. They always predict disaster, it never happens, but everyone believes them.
PS I wrote this guy:clive.wilkinson@rrrc.org.au who is in charge of something or other at the global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. I guess I will see if he confirms or denies.
Disagree with you there, Smokey. The colder weather is having an impact on the average person’s viewpoints on all of this.
I’ve stumbled upon a number of letters to the editor lately from across the country, and I’m encouraged from what I’ve read. Average people are starting to question what they’re being fed about global warming. They’ve been told time & time again we were at a tipping point, if not beyond it, and yet the weather where they live doesn’t seem to correlate. Each of the readers were writing in response to an article that claimed the planet was warming. It’s warmed my heart to read such letters, if you’ll pardon the pun.
That story about skiing in Colorado was released on the same day they were experiencing record cold. The comments at the bottom of the article were quite hilarious.
Local weather events may be anecdotal evidence, but it makes average people stop & think. And from what I’ve read recently, at least some of them are starting to ask questions.
Based on a growing La Nina and continued sunspot inactivity, I think 2009 will be on par with 2008, if not cooler.
2008 will be the year man-induced global warming died.
Anthony
Congratulations on making the ”
2008 Weblog Awards Finalists in “Best Science Blog”, along with Climate Audit.
Heads up everyone Voting begins January 5, 2009
Even though there is mounting evidence against man made global warming and more and more scientists are becoming confident to speak out about the theory, I would anticipate a major battle in Congress in early to mid 2008 when the Obama appointees that oversee environmental legislation, and who have a reputation for stong activism, propose strong legislation to control CO2 emissions.
It is not all about science that drives these people. Its about taxation, controlling development, environmentalism, reducing stress on the earth caused my mankind (sic), population control, the desire for control itself, you name it. These are powerful attractions and they are not about to be deterred from gaining it. They have even created their own hedge, by renaming their theory climate change. If they admit there is cooling it is because the cooling is caused by warming (but warming is never caused by cooling). Then they will say, we should move foward anyway with CO2 controls so as to insure we don’t have a problem, just in case. And if the rest of the world doesnt cooperate and have controls on their CO2 emissions (India and China) we should move ahead anyway and be a leader, set the example. Its not right for the USA, which contributes 25% of the CO2 emissions, to ruin the climate (we have too much wealth and we need to share it with the other “citizens of the world”).
The bottom line is that cooling is much worse for mankind than warming, if you had a choice, mostly due to lower crop yields (which are somewhat offset by higher CO2 concentrations that cause plants to grow faster and be more draught tolerant.)
Bottom line, there will be an epic battle in Congress in the coming months and I am not confident that this can be easily stopped. It will take a determined effort, but fortunately, the voice of reason is gathering strenth. We must prepare.
The BBC have the opposite view regarding hurricanes and climatic disasters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7803624.stm
The report segues rather neatly between insurance to climate, water vapour and finally into “stop the CO2!”
I would love to know how CO2 caused the China earthquake.
Slightly off topic, but I can’t seem to find a way to contact Anthony directly with this very interesting correlation, and a very nice prediction:
In the Netherlands, whenever conditions permit, a long-distance ice skating race is held in the north of the country, called the “Elfstedentocht” (Eleven-towns-tour). It is almost 200 km long, and is extremely popular with the country. Of course, the fact that we have not had one for 11 years has been blamed on Gorebull Warming. But, if one takes a graph of the sunspot cycle and plots when the 15 races have been held, eleven of them have been held at or near solar minimum, with three of the remaining four being in the weak solar cycle is 14, 15, and 16. Given that we are at solar minimum now, and that it is absolutely freezing outside at the moment, it looks rather likely that we will get one shortly! A good prediction for you!
I will be very grateful if someone who is more computer literate than me could plot the dates on which the event has been held on a graph of the sunspot number index. I have done it by hand, but it won’t look very good when scanned. The dates of the event are:
1909, 1912, 1917, 1929, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1947, 1954, 1956, 1963, 1985, 1986, 1997.
Since there is such a strong coincidence between solar minima and the Elfstedentocht, one might be tempted to conclude that the sun has a major controlling role in the climate…. Inconceivable!
I’d disagree that Perth’s reservoirs are amply filled – we got very little rain in August leaving us with about the same amount in the dams as last year. And the Murray River is still way below historial flow levels.
Rick,
According to NSIDC there was an abrupt change in wind patterns that compacted the ice. Also there seems to be some data problems that they have acknowledged, but haven’t figured out what to do with yet. Anthony addressed in this post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/24/nsidc-issues-documentation-corrections/
It does appear odd to me that the ice extent has changed from about 400,000 Km more than 2007 in mid-December to run parallel to the 2007 extent almost exactly for the last week or more. Whenever I see something like that I suspect data problems. It could be accurate, but I think that unlikely. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
James, perhaps you’d like to go over to Warwick Hughes’ blog and get some info on Perth rain catchment: http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=187
I see no problem…
Professor Mark Williams at the University of Colorado, forecast the demise of the Aspen ski industry to inadequate snow, the week before they broke their December snow record.
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/131044
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/131178
“Anthony, speaking of Al Gore’s prediction, any comment on this year’s arctic sea ice extent? This fall it looked like we were going to be well above average, but its dropped off recently….”
I also would welcome some investigation into this considerable variation of the ice-extent graphs. I have been told that:
1 – this is due to warmer ocean currents diverting towards the Arctic
2 – this is not an unusual variation at all
3 – this is due to high winds packing the ice into smaller areas
but no one seems to be able to refer to any current research….
“..(This uneducated prediction may have been the catalyst for Lewis Pugh and his absurd kayak stunt that failed miserably – Anthony)..”
That comment prompted me to take a look at Mr Pugh’s web page.
ALL comments for ALL sections have now been deleted. Something tells me that many other people have been making their feelings known…….
I predict that in 2009
[science fantasy] we’ll start hearing more about the interplay of the Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind and related from the Sun. While the magnetic field interplay may not contribute anything to the solar forcing, we will see new models discussing atmospheric ablation and upper atmospheric heat flow due to changes in the shape of Earth’s magnetosphere. This will factor in to heat loss in polar regions during times of a quiet sun. Quantifying auroral expressions for polar warming/cooling scenarios will become almost as popular as watching for sunspots.
[/science fantasy]
I also predict more predictions.
@James
The pages you pointed to show that 2008 is close to average in amount of rainfall and the storage graph shows 2008 to have the second highest year end yield in terms of amount of rain since 2001 [beginning at the end of August].
So I hereby induct the following into the
CHARLATAN HALL OF FAME
1. Ted Alvarez, Backpacker Magazine
2. Tim Flannery
3. Dr. Hans Hoegh-Guldberg
Who now have the honour of joining other great Charlatans like Al Gore, Michael Mann, James Hansen, Sir Nicolas Stern, Stefan Ramstorf, Gavin Schmidt and Rajendra Pachauri
Since global warming and climate change have never been the real reason for the leftist power grab, disproving global warming will not stop them. They have already changed their rhetoric to “energy conservation” and “sustainable energy sources.” Never mind that their energy ideas will take more energy, man hours and money to produce far less energy than our current sources. The leftists do not want our current system of several independently owned energy companies, they want a nationalized, government controlled energy grid. The U.S. depends on cheap, plentiful energy and the leftists want to control both the money and the political power that would come from controlling our energy. Everything we do will be with the permission of the government. Sadly, America seems to have lost their taste for individual freedom.
Here are a couple of links that should alarm people:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/915/story/423055.html
(especially the last two paragraphs)
From Obama’s energy and climate czarina:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/12/10/browner-climate-opportunity/
The town of Aspen, CO has too many people with too much time on their hands. In either of the two daily papers is a constant litany of exagerated AGW concerns. Another article, after several previous, regarding a natural gas hearth on the mall that emits nine pounds of carbon a year, and is the source of much debate and controversy. This is supposedly 5% of the emissions from a cow, far less than the machinery for moving skiers up mountains or almost any endeavor requiring energy. Yet the city counsel can debate this for hours, ad nauseum. We can thank the hysterical global warming crowd for this kind of ineffectual focus while there are real world issues to deal with.
“Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”
-Anthony
We should wait five years before we say it isn’t going to happen.
The 2009 ICCC to be held March 8-10 in New York with some 1,000 scientists and experts attending (double last years’), with a great deal of science discussed will be a huge success, with nary a peep or two about it in the MSM, unless to try to diminish and mock it.
On the other hand, the 2009 UN Climate Conference to be held Nov. 30-Dec. 11 in Copenhagen, with some 8,000 governmental representatives, NGOs, journalists, and others, with a great deal of political wrangling amid pseudoscientific blather will produce Kyoto II, or the “Copenhagen Protocol”, which will be trumpeted worldwide as a huge success overall, especially since the U.S., the last holdout will sign on to it. Naturally, the agreements will not be “nearly enough” to stop climate change, but will be “a good start”.
Meanwhile, the climate will continue to cool, and AGWers will continue to say “it’s just weather”, or “natural variation” or “noise” temporarily overcoming the underlying and potentially disasterous AGW.
The Elfstedentocht may not be the best proxy. I was told by a Dutch speed skating coach that some power plants discharge warm water into the canal systems making them less likely to freeze.
I have been told the 2014 Olympics did not go to Austraia because there will be less and less snow in the Alps. I’ll be watching…they sure have a nice dump this year
“We should wait five years before we say it isn’t going to happen.”
– Jumping the gun
I absolutely agree. As long as it’s just waiting and not pre-emptively trying to change things which are showing little if any signs of needing fixing, even if we *were* able to influence them strongly enough.
Maybe it will be true after 100 more years.
Oh, who the hell are you going to believe? People who measure snowfalls and temperatures, or folks who make up climate models to run on large mainframes?
If it comes down to reality versus theory, you should go with theory every time, even if it bears no resemblance to what’s actually going on! The computer is never wrnog!
/sarc
Don’t worry about cooling, the UK Met Office (and they are good at predicting, aren’t they?….well, aren’t they?) have just put out the following:
“2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Niña.
According to climate scientists at the Met Office and the University of East Anglia the global temperature is forecast to be more than 0.4 °C above the long-term average. This would make 2009 warmer than the year just gone and the warmest since 2005.”
See the rest of this strange piece at:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081230.html
Jumping the gun (08:41:08) :
“Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”-Anthony
We should wait five years before we say it isn’t going to happen.
Jump: no need to wait. In 1988 Hansen predicted a 1.2°C temp rise in 20 years; enough to have an ice-free Arctic passage for at least part of the year. The 2008 data showed around a 0.2°C rise and no Arctic passage. Several Arctic cruises to the North Pole and the Pugh kayak stunt (among others) were all planned based on predictions of ice-free passages in the Arctic made in between 2000 and 2007. Not only did it not occur, but the notion failed so badly that it turned embarrassing for all who proclaimed they would demonstrate to the world the effects of global warming.
We could wait another five years, but the AGW wonks won’t. They are rushing faster and faster to get their programs codified and forced on all of us. They say it is an urgency is necessary to avoid the “tipping points,” but I think the upper thinkers of the group realize it really is cooling. If they can get their programs in place under this urgency, perhaps they can claim their programs caused the cooling. Of course, the question remains: will they take responsibility for the negative effects of cooling, such as deaths due to cold, starvation caused by reduced agricultural productivity, etc.?
Off topic, but:
What has been going on with NSIDC’S data?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
First, we had the random adjustment that completed altered history since the ice minimum. Then, we had no ice growth until it met the 1979-2000 average. Now, it is perfectly mimicing the average. Watts up wth that?
Anonymoose, LOL
I think most of the Alarmists have learnt thier lesson; there won’t be very many predictions of doom for 2009 (Of course, NOAA and Hadley will most certainly work up some statistical wonders to stir the pot). At least for now look for more “studies” that push Doomsday out 50-100 years, prove that AGW is only hidden but will rear its ugly head soon, or continued obsession with artic ice, species extinction and other such abstractions. There should also be the seasonal Alarmists studies that follow the beginnings of summer (regional heat waves and localized droughts. floods, severe weather).
Of course, one cannot discount the upcoming legislative session(s). I would not be at all shocked to see a well timed “Alarmist study” to coincide with the Senate’s vote on upcoming AGW legislation. As a matter of fact, I’m sure the floor vote will be timed to occur in mid-late August in the hopes the votes will be taken during a blistering Beltway heatwave. NOAA and NASA will surely concoct the summer of 2009 as the hottest summer since 1850.
The debate goes on (Anthony gets mentioned)
http://theamericansentinel.com/2008/12/30/conflicting-scientific-data-fuels-global-warming-debate/
h/t: http://www.skepticsglobalwarming.com/
The CNN clip posted at skeptic is worth watching.
As an Amarilloan, I wonder how an alpine town at 8,200 feet is supposed to be magically transformed into the same climate as a Great Plains town at 3,000 feet? Does global warming dissolve mountains or something? There is nothing between Amarillo and Canada but tumble weeds and barbed wired fences, same thing South the Gulf of Mexico. What is Aspen supposed to start to get black dusters? Tornadoes? 100mph straight line winds? Softball sized hail?
Or maybe I am reading the thing wrong and Amarillo is going to become the next hot spot for the world’s rich and famous. I bet that’s it!
“Don’t worry about cooling, the UK Met Office (and they are good at predicting, aren’t they?….well, aren’t they?) have just put out the following:
“2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Niña.”
As much as a national embarrasment Hansen and NASA’s AGW fear-mongering are, the UK Met Office is equally embarrasing. I read that the UK is in for some of its coldest weather in decades. I wonder if UK Met predicted that.
A few days before Christmas the news story was Global warming will kill off Christmas trees. I don’t know why I am constantly amazed at how low they go but I am. This story was started by a politician. Here’s a link…
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200881217076
“Some studies have shown that continued global warming will adversely affect the optimum climate conditions in North Carolina for Fraser firs. A rise in average global temperatures would force the Fraser Fir’s natural climate northward and out of North Carolina. Rising temperatures also increase pest control problems and disease longevity.”
I’ve read supposedly learned studies that indicate the average person looks ahead only two weeks — and forgets a lot of the past. For those people, the individual “scare stories” will be forgotten and the fact they did not come true will be “unnoticed”.
What will remain, though, is the emotional impact. Having heard global warming is destroying the earth for a long time, they will believe it — its called brainwashing.
So, I am not at all optimistic that “mere facts” will have any significant impact on the general populace — until the national news and entertainment media “gets on board”.
Unfortunately, that media have already boarded the “other train” (the AGW train) and are heading in the opposite direction. They have no incentive to “jump that train”, I think. In fact, most media being of liberal bent, the “powers that be” probably cannot imagine they picked the wrong train.
“Alarmists have learnt their lesson; there won’t be very many predictions of doom for 2009…”
Au contraire, mon ami. I predict that New Orleans’ lower ninth ward will be rebuilt and repopulated in time to be swept away by another hurricane. This will reinforce what the consensus of smart people already knew, that global warming problems are man made.
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,20053387,00.html
Variations in weather (according to the alarmists) ‘prove’ their agenda. We must be a very vocal opposition against the incoming U.S. administration in their upcoming attempts to drive more $$$ toward the AGW band of thieves.
Thanks for your work Anthony…have posted this link on my site.
http://www.cookevilleweatherguy.com
For Grant Hodges; I think this is the article you want to find.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24811996-11949,00.html
Yes, non hysterical articles about the environment do tend to be rare, don’t they? World not ending? No one doomed? It’s not newsworthy.
I predict in 2009 Al Gore will continue to make millions on global warming while refusing to debate skeptics.
Hey look – the Green Movement finally acknowledges that it is a religion – and here’s its official Bible:
I would think the mid troposphere warming predicted by the AGW modelers would weaken storms by reducing convection. It the air aloft is warmer, wouldn’t that act to reduce convection? And I believe AGW’s greatest impact in the models for increasing average temperature comes from increasing nighttime lows more than increasing daytime highs.
Because CO2 in the atmosphere would work both ways, warming from heat radiated from Earth *and* warming from IR solar radiation, it would act to block solar IR from reaching the surface in the range of frequency where it is opaque to IR. So I would expect to see a moderation of high temperatures and an increase in low temperatures. Examples of this can be seen with water vapor where it might get to 110F in Phoenix but only in the low 90’s in Miami but Phoenix might drop to 60F at night while Miami might remain in the 80’s.
Greenhouse gasses should moderate the extremes of temperature and heating aloft should put a damper on convection which I would expect to moderate major storm activity, not enhance it. But I am not a weather man.
Tom (06:17:00) saith: “Here is my prediction for 2009. As the evidence for man-made global warming becomes less and less reliable and valid, the predications of dire consequences for mankind due to GW will increase exponentially and become more and more absurd. I admit this is not really a prediction but just a statement of fact. More akin to predicting that the sun will come up tomorrow.”
Well, yes, Tom, and it is even more like betting on a horse race after it’s over. (Except that in the case of a horse race, there are entire horses, which is not so for AGW advocates.)
I’ve always thought the “one of the 10 warmest years on record” argument was lame. I’m sure the 2008 S&P 500 average close is among the 10 highest on record, but nobody is saying that the stock market is going up.
Worth keeping an eye on, though nothing unusual yet, Yellowstone is having another earthquake storm:
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/
Here’s my prediction for 2009:
Failing to notice that fuel efficiency has declined the past several years as gasoline prices have risen, the media will notice that fuel efficiency falls when gas prices fall this winter. They will totally ignore that fuel efficiency declines in winter due to the weather and that this year’s winter has been and is expected to be especially harsh.
Fuel efficiency always declines in winter.
(MPG graph)
In today’s English press, when the country is covered in a heavy frost.
Next year set to be one of the warmest on record
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:55 PM on 30th December 2008
Next year is set to be one of the five warmest on record, climate scientists predicted today.
The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4C above the long term average, making next year warmer than this year and the hottest since 2005, the Met Office and University of East Anglia researchers said.
The news is sure to be welcomed by the majority of Britons as the country faces freezing temperatures over the next fortnight. Forecasters warn temperatures could plunge as low as -13C.
Next year is expected to be in the top five warmest on record despite the cooling influence of the Pacific weather phenomenon known as La Nina, in which cold waters rise to the surface and cool ocean and land temperatures.
More…
Weathermen say we could see New Year in with a flurry of snow as the big chill deepens
The Met Office also predicted a rapid return to long-term warming for global temperatures and an increased probability of record temperatures after 2009.
Currently the warmest year on record is 1998, which was dominated by the warming influence of an extreme El Nino and saw average temperatures of 14.52C – well above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14C.
Prof Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre said: “Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant influence on global surface temperature.
“Warmer conditions in 2009 are expected because the strong cooling influence of the recent powerful La Nina has given way to a weaker La Nina.
“Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Nino develops.”
And Prof Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, said: “The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away.
“What matters is the underlying rate of warming – the period 2001-2007, with an average of 14.44C, was 0.21C warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000.”
What I found really pitiful about the kayak stunt was their choice of routes. If you look at the cyrosphere images they picked the side of the arctic that had the least extent loss. link. Hint they came from the icelandic side.
Mike (07:08:29) :
“Elfstedentocht” The dates of the event are:
1909 four years from minimum,
1917 right at maximum
1929 one year after maximum
1940 four years from minimum
1947 right at maximum
1956 sunspot number 127 (higher than max for cycle 23)
The correlation with minimum is not very strong
I live 15 miles from the UK met office and have studied their prognostications for years and saw them once putting in the data for one of their climate predictions. Smoke and mirrors are the only words to describe it.
Everyone would be much saner if they didn’t attempt to dissect data in minute detail relating to ‘global temperatures since 1850’. There is no such thing. There were 100 weather stations in 1850 many of them highly dubious. GS Callendar was making his predictions of AGW based on around 230 stations. There is no such thing as a global temperature let alone one going back to 1850 that can be used as a proper base line. The only reliable sources are well kept national records such as the US, the UK and some other European countries such as Swizerland and Holland.
Curiously you can make a ‘Keeling curve’ out of published co2 levels and ‘Global temperatures since 1850’ but the curve falls apart if you use real world National records that go back long enough.
TonyB
You forgot the green Christmas:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3353366/Green-Christmas-more-likely-than-a-white-Christmas.html
Ancillary benefit of wind turbines: Lightning rods.
———————————————
When Lightning Strikes Wind Turbines
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/when-lightening-strikes-wind-turbines/
“…the worst hazard is not the ice that his blades can throw off in the winter.
Rather, it is lightning strikes on the towers, which usually occur in summer when there are more storms. The effect is spectacular — and scary. “It will explode those blades, and they’ll throw chunks of blade several hundred feet,”
“There’s really not much you can do with a turbine that’s 200 foot tall and on fire,”
“there’s oil and gearboxes and a tremendous amount of wiring” in the generator — so even though the turbines are very well-grounded, they can sometimes light up.”
And they’re starting early …
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE4BT49G20081230
2009 is going to be one of the warmest on record!
We’re all going to fry! Doooooomed, I tell, yer …. dooooooooomed!
For 2009 I predict reruns in place of reporting news.
This what you want?
Try again
http://www.gpsl.net/data/Elfstedentocht_held.png
Nick (09:21:54) :
Don’t worry about cooling, the UK Met Office (and they are good at predicting, aren’t they?….well, aren’t they?) have just put out the following:
“2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Niña.
I predict that this prediction will make Anthony’s list of “The worst climate predictions of 2009”.
Bottom line, there will be an epic battle in Congress in the coming months and I am not confident that this can be easily stopped. It will take a determined effort, but fortunately, the voice of reason is gathering strenth. We must prepare.
Ommmmm…..Yes, there will be a battle and we must enter into it full-bore. But apart from actual climate facts and science, the current National and World economic reality alone should provide the trump card against any measures acting to damp the otherwise “evil” energy use which drives our economy, our continued societal advancement, and the World’s.
[And that’ll be $10 from each of you, btw. After all, I don’t read fortunes just for my got dam health!….On second thought, give it to Anthony. I’ve got to buy my way out of sin somehow, and what better, more Progressive way is there to do it than to make you do it for me?]
Our local, South Australian (SA), news reported yesterday that both SA and Victoria have had their coolest December since 2001.
From personal experience, I remember SA Decembers in the last 60’s and early 70’s being extremely hot (high 30s C) but the last 3 or 4 have been quite cool, meaning warm clothes for half the day rather than shorts and T-shirts. We’ve only had the air conditioning on once, so far, this summer.
I predict that Dallas Tx will be the hottest spot on Earth by next December, especiallly when Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys miss making the playoffs again.
(How many years in a row is it now?)
tonyb
“Everyone would be much saner if they didn’t attempt to dissect data in minute detail relating to ‘global temperatures since 1850′. There is no such thing. There were 100 weather stations in 1850 many of them highly dubious.”
indeed
“You will find at page 391 of the Transactions for 1873, a short notice of a discussion on Solar and Terrestrial Radiation, introduced by Mr. C. R. Marten, who explained that the black bulb thermometer in Southland frequently ranged as high as 170°, being 30° higher than in Sydney, and much higher than it has ever reached in the North Island.
As some doubts are implied in the printed report of the correctness of the readings, I wish to state that Mr. Marten is not only an enthusiast in meteorological pursuits, but a most painstaking observer, with whom my duties as first Director of Meteorological Stations in New Zealand brought me in very pleasing communication. As this is a subject on which I formerly took much trouble, and may claim-for myself the merit of having established all the principal Meteorological Stations in New Zealand, and as it was a great comfort to have the co-operation of Mr. Marten, I am anxious to explain why I believe the observations referred to are correct. Of course we all know how difficult it is to prevent “cooking” of observations. In looking over my correspondence with a distinguished savant who had a great deal to do with getting up meteorology in India, he notices how discouraging it was to work at the results of people who had no training in the use of instruments. The stupidity of some observers is impregnable. An intelligent, well-educated man supplied him a long series of wet-bulb observations obtained by holding a thermometer under water and reading off—the bulb was wet, what more could be wanted! You will understand, then, the comfort, in starting a number of Meteorological Stations, of having a Member of the Meteorological Society of England for a coadjutor.”
http://outsidethecube.blogspot.com/2007/09/climate-controversies-circa-1874-royal.html
http://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/volume/rsnz_07/rsnz_07_00_007630.html
The worst prediction MADE in 2008??? may be the one made today.
“Experts predict 2009 to be scorcher”
The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4C above the long term average, the Met Office and University of East Anglia researchers said.
The Met Office also predicted a rapid return to long-term warming for global temperatures and an increased probability of record temperatures after 2009.
Currently the warmest year on record is 1998, which saw average temperatures of 14.52C – well above the 1961 to 1990 long-term average of 14C……
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081230/tuk-experts-predict-2009-to-be-scorcher-dba1618.html
The sun needs to go to the emergency room and get the paddles out for a zap.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html
Warming, cooling, anthropogenic, natural? Here’s a thought – ending carbon addiction would allow us to move toward a world that isn’t bathing in foul hydrocarbons – pollution is a real and measurable threat to planetary health.
Oh yes, secondary benefits – we can say ‘adios’ to those oiligarchies; gain the ‘first mover’ benefit by building an alternate energy driven economy; re-deploy our rustbelt industries to mass produce the simple solar technologies that can’t compete with cheap oil and dirt cheap coal.
You may all be right, but where is your vision for the future?
Hey, I hadn’t noticed much specific talk about sunspots in a few weeks (I may have missed it). I’ve been checking every day at spaceweather.com. We had a couple in DEC and a couple in NOV. Any word on how 2008 will pan out? Will it place anywhere near the record books for recent history? I mean for fewest sunspots in a calender year? It’s been another long string of spotless days.
Thanks, and the comments on this blog are greatest. Most are very educational, many are hilarious. only very few are uninformed.
Aussie John
Good to see a fellow South Aussie on here! I’m down in McLaren Flat, where are you? I checked the December temps for Adelaide and we are around 1.5degC below the long term mean for December so far and the last couple of days have been very mild.
cheers Neil
James (07:22:55)
“we got very little rain in August.”
It might of escaped your notice but this is December. Picking one months rainfall is hardly a trend.
Perth has received 807.8mm of rain so far this year compared with 703 mm last year. It is however below the 855mm average over what appears to be a four year average.
But yet the spin continues. # 2 weather story of the 2008 from environment Canada:
2. The Great Arctic Thaw Continues
http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/smc-msc/2008/s2_eng.html
The spin of meaningless tripe is quite impressive.
If non public funding trough feeders were to write the headline it would be something along the lines of: Arctic Ice Begins Cyclic Recovery from 2007 Minimum.
And it wouldn’t have been a top story.
James (07:22:55) :
“I’d disagree that Perth’s reservoirs are amply filled – we got very little rain in August leaving us with about the same amount in the dams as last year. And the Murray River is still way below historial flow levels”.
James,
As I have understood the problem the historical low levels of the Murray River is not a climate related problem but caused by water management.
You can find detailed information about the Murray River at the web site of http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/
She is a specialist on the subject and I am confident she will answer all your questions.
Jumping the gun (08:41:08) :
“Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”
-Anthony
“We should wait five years before we say it isn’t going to happen”.
Jumping the Gun,
There is no reason whatsoever to wait for five years to confirm a stupid alarmist statement.
Have a look at this web site and be assured:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
You have to read between the lines with met Office press releases. They forecast that 2007 would be the hottest year on record, so 2009 being only number five indicates an ongoing cooling trend.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070104.html
This reads just like “State of Fear” – the nore predictions fail to verify , the louder the claims of “the end is near” come. Of course, this is reality and the book was “fiction”, although the parallels between the two are astounding. Hopefully reality plays out similary to the book & the frauds are exposed.
re: predictions and other stuff
It has stopped snowing for today. Temps are now once again below freezing after a short but strong blast from the pineapple belt. So I am out cutting fire wood in frozen snow and iced up slush and mud. My honey fixed my furnace (clogged nozzle from water in the oil tank and blocked flue due to snow and ice bringing debris down to the furnace-chimney connection).
I predict it will be a long, cold winter and very short cool summer. Next winter will be just as cold if not colder than this one. Spring wheat on the upper flats around here will freeze again. Especially with farmers that don’t have a lot of sense. Winter wheat will be a bumper crop like it was this past summer. Alfalfa and timothy grass will have a hard time living long enough for a third cutting. Hay prices will stay high. Ranchers will sell down their herd, raising market prices at the grocery store. Winter wheat will be our best bet followed by alfalfa and timothy hay. Wool should be making a comeback soon so it wouldn’t surprise me to see some ranchers supplementing income from cows with sheep.
By the way, the kerosene space heater I bought works great! Very quiet and warms a large room right up with no kerosene smell! No worries about burning oxygen up. With 4300 sq ft of house, 10 foot ceilings, poured glass windows, single layer old wood floor over a deep and breezy crawl space, and a century-plus old framing with no insulation, I have plenty of ventilation. For those of you caught in storms with no electricity, these heaters are just the ticket.
This whole thread has elements which are deeply misleading. The predictions were generally not made and are presented out of context and defamatory.
Take this one. >“Australia’s Cities Will Run Out of Drinking Water Due to Global Warming.”
It relates to a long term decline in rainfall, not that 2008 would see the cities run dry. As the globe warms the subtropics generally dry out as the poleward edge of the Hadley circulation expands due to decreasing baroclinic instability.
Sadly, it is proving correct. This year ALL southern Australian capital cities experienced very dry conditions – Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne and Canberra in large part due to a failure of the autumn through spring rains. In the case of Melbourne, Perth and Hobart this drought is now by far the driest and hottest ever recorded. The cities of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney are now developing massively costly desalination plants as a result of a collapse in river flows.
>“Corals will become increasingly rare on reef systems.” Dr. Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, head of Queensland University (Australia) marine studies.
The predictions for 2006 relate to very high tempeartures on the reef at the time. Fortunately these broke down with heavy rainfall. The great barrier reef experienced large scale bleaching as recently as 2003, and is currently at a high risk of bleaching due to extremely high temperatures which have occurred this year. A result of agricultural runoff, acidification and bleaching has already severely damaged many of the in-shore reefs.
If the case for climate “scepticism” is strong, where is the peer reviewed science, and why popularise nonsense?
Corals will become increasingly rare on reef systems.” Dr. Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, head of Queensland University (Australia) marine studies.
In 2006, Dr. Hoegh-Guldberg warned that high temperatures might kill 30-40 percent of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef “within a month.” In 2007, he said global warming temperatures were bleaching [potentially killing] the reef.
(Originally from Andrew Bolt, apparently)
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg is actually one of the most published and cited authors on corals and arguably the world’s leading authority on the topic, he was lead author on this literature review last year for example. His blog is here.
Coral bleaching occurs when coral is stressed, the coral expels the colourful symbiotic unicellular algae leaving it with a whitened bleached out appearance. It is not necesarily a death sentence, if the cause of stress is removed then the coral can regenerate quite quickly. In 2002, there was a serious bleaching event on the Barrier Reef in which 40-50% of the corals were bleached and around 5% did not recover. The context to the first quote is when in 2005/6 the temperatures began to track those of the earlier event, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg warned that the same thing may be about to happen. As things panned out the same conditions did not transpire and thankfully there was no major bleaching on that occasion.
The reality though, is that corals are in trouble, since 1950 about a fifth of the world’s reefs have disappeared, While initially the main causes were overfishing and pollution, and I guess the new trend for dynamite fishing doen’t help(!), in recent decades it has been mass bleaching events, triggered by warmer waters that present the main threat. In a single year alone 1998 16% of the coral was functionally destroyed, and the overall rate of loss is faster than that of the rainforests. In the future acidification by the CO2 enriched atmosphere may damage considerably the ability of corals to form hard structures.
The 2008 GCRMN annual status report is paraphrased by Dennis Avery: here is the summary
The condition of coral reefs in most regions of the world has progressively declined during the past 3 to 4 decades. Initial damage was largely caused by human activities, such as over- and destructive fishing, inappropriate coastal developments and land-use causing sedimentation and nutrient pollution, and outbreaks of coral and fish diseases and predators such as the crown-of-thorns starfish; all of which might have been exacerbated by human activities. However, since the first recognised mass bleaching event in 1982/83, there has been growing concern about the influence of climate on coral reefs. Unfortunately, these concerns have been vindicated by the increasing frequency and intensity of mass coral bleaching events, particularly in 1998 when approximately 16% of the world’s reefs were functionally destroyed, in 2002 when reefs across the western Pacific were affected, and in 2005 when severe bleaching and coral disease caused up to 50% mortality in many areas of the Caribbean. Caribbean reefs were also subjected to 26 named storms, including 13 hurricanes in 2005. There is also growing recognition that increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 threaten the structural integrity of reefs by reducing the rate of calcification in corals.
Coincidentally the four-yearly International Coral Reef Symposium was held this year. The Outcomes communiqué contains the stark sentence ‘The canary in the coral-coal mine is dead, but we still have time to save the miners’ and the assembled experts felt the need to issue a ‘Call to Action’ : .2008 is a critical time for coral reefs. At the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium held in July, midway in the International Year of the Reef, over 3000 experts from 75 countries assembled to face some hard truths: coral reefs are teetering on the edge of survival and it is our fault. High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have produced a lethal combination of hotter and less alkaline seawater. Pervasive overfishing, pollution, coastal development, and physical damage further undermine reef health, and consequently, that of the people and ecosystems depending upon them … Only by taking bold and urgent steps now can we hope to ensure that reefs will survive to enrich life on earth, as they have for millions of years before us. By failing to act we risk bequeathing an impoverished ocean to our children and future generations.
By means of selective quotation and juxtaposition Mr Avery (or is it Mr Bolt?) seeks to discredit Hoegh-Guldberg and implies all is well with the reefs. Methinks he fails. The Professor responds here.
JP.
Let’s not forget that climate hobbyist Professor Tim Flannery also suggests pumping billions of tonnes of sulphur into the atmosphere by adding it to jet fuel in order to cause global dimming to combat global warming. He says it will turn the sky brown but may be needed within 5 years and doesn’t know if it will work…WTF!
Michael
Here’s my nomination for the worst prediction of 2007:
“…They had forecast the Arctic Ocean could be free of summer ice as early as 2050. But Fortier told an international conference on defence and security in Quebec City Thursday that the worst-case scenarios are becoming reality.
“The frightening models we didn’t even dare to talk about before are now proving to be true,” Fortier told CanWest News Service, referring to computer models that take into account the thinning of the sea ice and the warming from the albedo effect – the Earth is absorbing more energy as the sea ice melts. According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between 2010 and 2015. “And it’s probably going to happen even faster than that,” said Fortier…”
An ice free Artic in 6 months! Who’d a thiunk it!
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=c76d05dd-2864-43b2-a2e3-82e0a8ca05d5&k=53683
I’d suggest making up a list of the AGW prediction from 2000 onward. Many of them should be coming due about now.
Records fall in North Dakota snowstorm
By James Macpherson, Associated Press Writer
…
The National Weather Service said Garrison about 13 inches of new snow fell on Garrison, the most accumulation in the state from the latest storm. But it’s been a record month for snow in North Dakota.
In Bismarck, the National Weather Service said the overnight storm brought the city’s December snow total to 33.5 inches, more than any month on record in Bismarck. It tops the mark of 31.1 inches in March 1975.
…
Grand Forks and Fargo each set records with more than 30 inches of snow for December. Fargo topped its 1927 record for December by about an inch while Grand Forks topped its 1918 record of 27.6 inches.
…
She said she’s heard some grousing in town about the heavy snow and bitter cold after years of mild winters. “This is something that is normal and we should have had all these years, but we haven’t,” she said. “People just forget that we get this kind of weather.”
Just weather variability, brought about by
global warmingclimate change.Oh and Hans Hoegh-Guldberg is Ove’s father, a reputable economist, but certainly not head of Queensland University (Australia) marine studies.
The story about the Great Barrier Reef’s good health appeared in the Australian Newspaper 17th Dec 2008.
The point about the city water storage’s in Australia was that Tim Flannery predicted that Perth would have to be abandoned in the near term because of lack of potable water.
With regard to the Murray/Darling inflows, the wild fires that have occurred in the upper catchment of the Murray River since 2000 have reduced runoff as the forests regenerate, trees having first dibs on ground water.
Some research by the Bushfire CRC suggests that wildfires in catchments can reduce runoff by up to 20% for a decade.
Mum Nature is marvelously complex and not easily explained by simple models!
Looking forward to the third cold winter in the Southern Hemisphere in 2009 if the NH winter is anything to go by.
Bitter -50 below temps move in to Alaska
So much for projections of higher temperatures in Alaska for 2008 and launching 2009. What affect might this have on Alaskan/global temperatures for 2008/2009?
PS Now that Drudge listed this site, the JuneauEmpire server does not appear to have the bandwidth to support the added traffic. Maybe tomorrow.
Believe it or not, there is a 1000 page report on the Great Barrier Reef and Climate Change:
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/info_services/publications/misc_pub/climate_change_vulnerability_assessment/climate_change_vulnerability_assessment
And an Action Plan 2007-2012 for which the Australian Government has allocated $A9 million dollars towards (this has probably been considerably increased with the new government). Nice work if you can get it and you are a research scientist who likes a bit of snorkelling. But the Action Plan is nothing but meaningless words. I would have just taken Ben Crop’s advice and simply prevented overfishing and the number of tourists dropping anchors off the reef.
Been there many times and also have never seen it better this year.
TimC (12:29:16) :
Try again
http://www.gpsl.net/data/Elfstedentocht_held.png
Thanks Tim!
JuneauEmpire.com Story last updated at 12/30/2008 – 9:22 am
In response to:
Tom in wonderfully warm Florida (12:55:38) :
I predict that Dallas Tx will be the hottest spot on Earth by next December, especiallly when Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys miss making the playoffs again.
(How many years in a row is it now?)
HAHAHAHA…classic! As a Tennessee Titans fan, we appreciate Jerry taking Pacman off our hands.
My prophecy for the future is that the ever pervasive unelected officials of governments will attempt shut down the internet. They will of course do this at first to save the kiddies from predators. You see you are not worthy of guiding your children through the complications of the human condition.
They will then shadow your childrens net usage to see if they visit any sites that might be contrary to the political consensus and what is appropriate for such impressionable minds. They will without your permission, block sites they deem harmful to your child and by default you.
The good news is we have seen it all before. We won’t tolerate it and nor will your children.
“Australia’s Cities Will Run Out of Drinking Water Due to Global Warming.”
Tim Flannery was named Australia’s Man of the Year in 2007-for predicting that Australian cities will run out of water. He predicted Perth would become the “first 21st century ghost city,’ and that Sydney would be out of water by 2007. Today however, Australia’s city reservoirs are amply filled. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Herald-Sun reminds us Australia is truly a land of long droughts and flooding rains.
Melbourne’s dams are at 34%. Which is very low, and lower than the same time last year. Ref http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content/water/weekly_water_update/weekly_water_update.asp?bhcp=1
However – is this due to man made emissions of CO2 causing catastrophic global warming – or poor state government policy decisions on water supply infrastruture?
The current state labour government stopped the building of a DAM on the Mitchell river in 2002. Ref http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200209/s678384.htm
The recent flooding in 2007 if captured by a DAM on the Mitchell would have provided water for Melbourne Ref http://www.lightninghunter.net/gippsland_floods.htm
Today it was reported in the news that the Transportation Department for the state of Wisconsin is looking to basically form a CO-OP with the states surrounding Wisconsin due to the high cost of road salt during the past few harsh winters. Praise be, we finally, we have an actually government organization that recognizes that AGW theory may not be worth a grain of salt. Clearly they are not expecting winter in the midwest United States to disappear anytime soon.
As it’s still 2008, how about this prediction from the Telegraph 30th December.
———————————
“The average global temperature is expected to be more than 32.7F (0.4C) above the long term average, making next year warmer than this year and the hottest since 2005, researchers from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia said. The warmest year on record is 1998, which saw an average temperature 32.9F (0.52C) above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 57.2F (14C).
Professor Phil Jones, the director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, said: “The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away.
“What matters is the underlying rate of warming – the period 2001-2007, with an average of 57.99F (14.44C), was 32.38F (0.21C) warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000.”
———————————
Prof P. Jones is a desperate man these days, after all he has been quoted as saying that 32.38F is 0.21C. Now it’s more than possible that Duncan Gardham and Jon Swaine are rubbish reporters, but they updated their article at 5:56PM GMT. What does P. Jones mean? Anyone?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4030681/New-Years-Eve-set-to-be-colder-than-in-Iceland.html
Compare
Warm Winter Predicted For United States
U.S. Winter Outlook Calls For Variability, According To NOAA
Contrast Don Easterbrook’s temperature predictions for rapidly declining temperatures based on sunspot cycles.
The Reuter’s article (link in Richard North’s comment, above) has a rather strange paragraph:
“Theories abound as to what triggers the mechanisms that cause an El Nino or La Nina event but scientists agree that they are playing an increasingly important role in global weather patterns.”
Increasingly important role? Seems to be implying that in times past, El Ninos and La Ninas weren’t all that important, but now they are. Hmm…
Re the Met Office’s “rapid return of global temperature to the long-term warming trend” statement – they need this to happen and fast! For this is what they said in August 2007:
“Climate scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre will unveil the first decadal climate prediction model in a paper published on 10 August 2007 in the journal Science. The paper includes the Met Office’s prediction for annual global temperature to 2014.
Over the 10-year period as a whole, climate continues to warm and 2014 is likely to be 0.3 °C warmer than 2004. At least half of the years after 2009 are predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.”
2009 is almost here, which leaves a scant 5 years for their 0.3 ° increase to take hold. Time’s a ticking!
David L. Hagen
“The Associated Press
FAIRBANKS – Bitterly cold weather slid over from Canada and settled into Interior Alaska with forecasters saying temperatures could continue to slide to nearly 50 degrees below zero in coming days.”
Barrow came in at -15.5C in November it is still slightly above average since 1921 but I suspect December to show a decline over the average. Busy time of year, but I’ll try and run a linear trend line through it when the numbers come in.
Oh dear, I hope Christopher Booker reads this. His esteemed colleagues have written a prediction for 2009 (yes, I know, this is bait for Watts end of next year blog):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4030681/New-Years-Eve-set-to-be-colder-than-in-Iceland.html
(sorry, don’t know how to do hrefs!).
Regarding current SE Australian climate:
Tasmania’s water catchments are low. As is usual, a *cold* winter is dry and this last winter was *colder* and drier than average.
The Git watches plant growth rather than consulting thermometers when it comes to judging temperature. Several of my cauliflowers have yet to come to head. Usually, they are finished the first week in November. So far this summer, we have had one summer day.
Mostly the temps have been struggling to reach 20C and the experts tell us the temps are above average? Tomorrow is predicted to reach 15C with mountain snow.
Regarding CO2 and corals:
Corals are among the oldest organisms on the planet. They have survived far higher atmospheric CO2 levels than those in the Holocene.
Back in 2003, Peter T. Harris, Andrew D. Heapa, Theodore Wassenbergb and Vicki Passlow discovered coral reefs in the Gulf of Carpentaria. This was a surprise as marine biologists knew that water temperatures there were too high to allow corals to thrive.
I’d say that corals are far more adaptible than AGW True Believers.
Tom in wonderfully warm Florida (12:55:38) :
I predict that Dallas Tx will be the hottest spot on Earth by next December, especiallly when Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys miss making the playoffs again.
(How many years in a row is it now?)
That would be one since they were in the playoffs last year. 🙂
The insult you were looking for was how many years has it been since they won a playoff game and that would be 13, I think. Since there are a number of teams that have an equal or worse record, that particular one doesn’t sting very much.
>With regard to the Murray/Darling inflows, the wild fires that have occurred in the upper catchment of the Murray River since 2000 have reduced runoff as the forests regenerate, trees having first dibs on ground water.
Some research by the Bushfire CRC suggests that wildfires in catchments can reduce runoff by up to 20% for a decade.
The fires did not occur until Jan/Feb 2003, and in the first 10 years inflows increase (not decrease) because forests are replaced initially with bare ground and then small trees. The larger of the fire episodes – the largest “natural event” since at least the mid 19th century occurred in December 2006 (a year when inflows were half the previous record low, and rainfall in many areas far below previous records lows). The fires have increased runoff not decreased them.
Perth would have run out of water by now if it were not for the desalination plant and the massive draw down of ground water north of Perth.
Brisbane and Melbourne are now on water rationing (5 million people), and Adelaide is fast tracking a desalination plant as the Murray River (it’s main source of water) is now below sea level in its lower reaches and at severe risk of hyper salination and acifidification.
All these predictions. Reminds me of a time when people read newspapers and at the end of each year the Sunday supplements had forecasts for the upcoming year issued by psychics. In my mind, today’s climate forecasts have all the credibility of a psychic’s predictions. They look at the trendline from the depths of the Little Ice Age and make predictions based on that, figuring the odds favor their predictions. Throw in a little pseudo-science to give it an air of respectability and alleged journalists fawn all over these new age psychics with their calls of doom and the need to repent.
And in ten years we’ll doubtless be told we’re ten years from reaching a tipping point.
AEGeneral (06:44:02) :
I agree, that even though many (me included) are having fun with singular cold weather events, these are things that make it “real” for folks who aren’t able to follow some of the complexities and convolutions. I think the other thing that makes it real for folks is when the power, control, money and idealogy aspects of the story are told with the backdrop of some local cold weather to get their attention.
BTW, I’ve seen a few of those letters to the editor myself which is refreshing, but certainly a long time coming.
david (17:03:09) :
Appropriate and cost-effective water supply infrastructure in the Gippsland region would have seen recent floods (i.e 2007) not only fill Melbournes reservoirs, but also allow for excess flood water to be redirected into the Murray to provide for an environmental flow that would have flushed the coorong wetlands by now.
Inaction on the part of successive state governments in Victoria has resulted in a shortage of supply infrastructure and the current restrictions.
Ongoing lack of planning and investment in cost/effective water supply infrastructure has (ref restrictions) and will diminish the quality of human life in the Australian SE, as well as the environment.
While the federal government is happy to build and/or extend dams in the ACT to secure water supplies. Ref http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/20/2250534.htm
The state governments can only sit on their hands. Ref http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200209/s678384.htm
Here is an end of year, 10 years ahead prediction, which I sincerely hope does not come true.
When Green Chickens Come Home To Roost.
Somewhere in the USA, Sometime in 2018…
FADE IN.
OUTSIDE: EARLY EVENING – NOVEMBER.
– A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road. Their guards carry rifles, and short whips. A light dusting of snow is falling.
– They pass a Primary (Elementary) school where the teachers and students have assembled to watch them pass. The Principle of the school turns and faces the assembled children and staff and raises her arms.
Principle: (Stern Encouragement) “Now children all as one – Sceptics are Septics”.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Some of the chained people steal glances at the children.
Guard: “Eyes Front!”
– The guard smashes his whip across the face of one of the chained men and bright blood splashes onto the snow.
– One of the schoolchildren breaks ranks and staggers forward through the snow.
Schoolboy: (Falteringly Disbelief) “That’s my Dad!?”
– The principle turns abruptly towards the boy and signals to green frocked School Proctors, who leap forward and grab the boy before he can reach the road.
– The struck man slumps to the ground, barely conscious, the man chained next to him takes his arm and drags him to his feet.
Principle: (Outraged) “Shocking behaviour. Samuel Taylor – A months detention. Proctors remove him to the holding room.”
– The proctors drag the boy away.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Continue Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Two school cleaners stand quietly to the side of the assembly, not being teaching staff or students they are not required to join in. They talk quietly together.
Cleaner One: “So the Higgs Boson has been found at CERN?”
Cleaner Two: “Yes, the Paper by Peebles gives an excellent demonstration of the existence of the Higgs Boson.”
Cleaner One: “Do you miss the research at MIT?”
Cleaner Two: “Of course – but at least I’m able to feed my little girl. – and what choice did I have, Particle Physics isn’t Environmental Science is it.”
Cleaner One: “Same with Nuclear Engineering – now that all the reactors have been shut down – there’s just no more work for a PHD in Engineering in my field.”
– Cleaner Two nods towards the steadily moving chain gang.
Cleaner Two: “Still it’s better than what that lot are facing.”
Cleaner One: “Which is?”
Cleaner Two: “5 Years Hard Labour in the Pig Methane Plant.”
Cleaner One: “Shovel Pig manure for 18 hours a day and get fed…”
Cleaner Two: “Which would you prefer – that – or the alternative?”
– Cleaner one shivered from more than the cold, and drew his coat more tightly around his thin frame.
Cleaner One: “The fertiliser plant – but that’s just for capital crimes isn’t it?”
Cleaner Two: “Apparently “Carbon Denial” is set to become a capital crime – rumour has it, that it’s to be the next Presidential Emergency Directive.”
Cleaner One: (Quietly) “Oh my god… what have we become?”
– Cleaner Two nods silently in agreement.
– The Principle signals a halt to her students and staff.
Principle: (Smug) “Now everyone – we have todays new mantra, lets chant it together for the benefit of these poor deluded people.”
All: (Chanting in practised unison) “Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling…”
FADE OUT.
Thank you for that report and references JP. Listened to the audio on the summary of 11th International Conference. Pity it was all group think even the so called balancing force of the journalists and their questions.
Did Corinne Podger really knock out 17 submissions for ABC Australia? I can see now why the ABC has been predicting the imminent death of the Great Barrier Reef for years and is the greatest prophet of doom in the Australian media.
But don’t get me wrong, I am all for doing as much for coral reefs as possible and restoring damaged ones – provided we correctly identify what is causing the damage.
My only sore point is the man made global warming bit.
I am afraid that Ove Hoegh-Guldberg told me nothing that could convince me that man made global warming was causing damage to coral reefs. His summary was basically:
1. Oceans have been warming for the past decade (?)
2. Coral cover is low. (Surely if the oceans are expanding they should be higher?)
3. Nothing has been done to zero fish which affects loss of coral (agree)
4. There is no silver bullet to help coral and global warming. (Adaption?)
5. CO2 is the main culprit and if we are to settle on 450 ppm it is now or never.
JP, I think you hit the nail on the head when quoted that it was in 1982 that the first mass bleaching event was RECOGNISED. I’ll bet that if Capt Cook was aware, he would have recognised some as well. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg sounds very dedicated to coral reefs but also to CO2 as their major threat – even though many others were identified in the symposium.
Sydney’s future eaten: the Flannery prophecy
By Anne Davies, Urban Affairs Editor
May 19, 2004
Sydney Morning Herald
As temperatures around the world warmed by 2 to 7 per cent[sic], Sydney could glimpse its future by looking at the devastating impact that global warming had already had on Perth, which he said was likely to become a “ghost metropolis”.
David:
It’s too bad nobody dealt with the water supplies then, isn’t it?
This is part of the main point “we” are all trying to make. Attempting to regulate CO2 to control the climate is like …. okay, I can’t think of a good analogy. Something like mooring the Titanic with a piece of thread. Suffice to say it’s RETARDED.
Deal with water supplies, transportation, food supplies. Anything else is pure egotistical hogwash, and a waste of resources. ANYONE complaining about things like water supplies and power generation after FAILING to build such facilities is a moron. Yes. Moron.
By the way, there are a lot of cities in the NH completely swamped with snow right now, since they’ve been hearing the constant drumbeat of GLOBAL WARMING and experienced a few relatively mild winters. It was easy to let the snow clearing equipment and materials and people go, wasn’t it?
This is the responsibility of government: build and maintain infrastructure. Period. And most governments have failed miserably in this one thing. How anyone could even conceive of assigning them any bigger responsibilities is beyond me.
Geoff Pohanka (07:06:03) :
“… mounting evidence against man made global warming…..scientists are becoming confident to speak… I would anticipate a major battle in Congress in early to mid 2008 w……… to control CO2 emissions.”
If you can detach from any frustration over the outcome, I think this battle could be very entertaining and politically educational. What does a politician do when he feels the groundswell of realists while at the same time being challenged by the power brokers? He/she has to make a calculated risk assessment, and a key factor is their judgement of the speed, amplitude, and destructive power of that groundswell.
If they think it will be 4-8 years for the crest, they go with the power brokers. If its 2-4 years most will also go that way, but it gets real interesting if they think the crest hits sooner.
It could also be interesting to see if some younger politicians of whatever party decide this is a foundational issue to build their reputations on. It will also be interesting to see what Obama does if the crest hits sooner. After his AGW speech, I don’t know how he could back off, but if he really is a good politician (and a leader of principle) he’ll find a way to reverse himself. If he can, he builds a bit of credibility with me.
I hate to rain on our parade, but I think Hadley has a decent shot at being correct with their top-5 prediction, unless short-term trends reverse dramatically, and soon.
1) The current Hadley 12-month running mean is +.315. Between my not very reliable linear regression from UAH December daily data, and my gut feeling “correction”, I expect that December 2008 will be 0.3 warmer than December 2007, which will raise the 2008 mean temp to +0.340
2) Take a look at the 12-month running mean temps for Hadley and GISS at http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/mean:12/from:1995/plot/gistemp/mean:12/from:1995 and you’ll notice an approximate 3-year cycle from about 2001 onwards. We don’t know the root physical mechanism causing the cycle but, like sunspots, we can simply extrapolate from the past. It looks like a rise of 0.05 to 0.07, let’s call it 0.06. That pushes the +0.340 Hadley temp to +.400
3) January+February 2008, by themselves, combined to bring down the 12 month running mean by 0.076 for Hadley, and 0.09 for GISS. Unless this coming winter is really, really, really brutal, expect some of that drop to be given back, Even giving half of it back pushes Hadley to +0.435
The only thing that’ll stop this is a rejuvenated La Nina as per http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aj1nH.0owWcY I am not certain of the outcome of the 2009 annual mean, but Hadley’s estimate is not necessarily a joke. The dice are loaded in its favour. If, in the teeth of all the pro-warming factors, 2009 ends up cooler than 2008, I’m going to start running around predicting son-of-Maunder.
Pierre Gosselin (08:14:03) :
“…CHARLATAN HALL OF FAME..”
How about Kevin Trenberth from UCAR? His testimony to Barbara Boxer’s U. S. Senate committee a few months back with Dr Spencer next to him was sickening.
CodeTech (17:47:54) :
This is the responsibility of government: build and maintain infrastructure. Period. And most governments have failed miserably in this one thing. How anyone could even conceive of assigning them any bigger responsibilities is beyond me.
Agreed.
“Meanwhile, the climate will continue to cool, and AGWers will continue to say “it’s just weather”, or “natural variation” or “noise” temporarily overcoming the underlying and potentially disasterous AGW.”
I don’t think that’s what they’ll do.
I think they’ll take credit for the cooling.
JimB
Hi david,
I enjoy your posts. They’re like eating candy, they’re so much fun:
You seem to imply that the dreaded AGW/CO2 boogeyman is the cause of Australia’s droughts — which are so severe that they cause rivers to drop below sea level! I wondered how a river that flows to the ocean at its ‘lower reaches’ could be below sea level, so I did a search.
Turns out that the Murray River has a series of locks, the first of which was put into service in 1922. Therefore, the locks must have been proposed and planned many years before 1922, no?
The world was mainly agrarian in the early 1900’s, and the main source of CO2 was cattle farts and ocean emissions.
But thanx for prompting me to investigate how global warming could cause a river to drop below sea level. I learned something new, while getting to deconstruct yet another silly AGW conjecture.
Keep ’em coming, david!
2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record
Yes, that can be arranged.
(Fresh from the USHCN adjustment page.)
MattN, that graph is only since 1975, see http://water.com.au/_images/Dams/Dams_streamflow.gif for one over a longer period. That’s inflow, not rainfall I’ll grant, but notice the big drop at 1975, just when the graph you linked started. MartinGAtkins: I know it’s December, don’t partonise me. I’m saying we have no more water than this time last year, due to the dry August. I’m not saying the dry August was because of AGW, or whatever, just explaining that our dams are not “amply filled”. The Murray River is not a topic I’m well-informed on, so I’ll drop it.
Bill Marsh:”The insult you were looking for was how many years has it been since they won a playoff game and that would be 13, I think. Since there are a number of teams that have an equal or worse record, that particular one doesn’t sting very much.”
Thank you for clearing that up, but it wasn’t an insult, just a smartalecked jab.
I do think it stings Mr Jones much more than other owners. But then as a Buccaneer fan, well, our owner gave Chucky a three year extention last year, now that hurt!!
Australia is not going through a drought. The water is simply not falling where the people are. However, as a continent, the rainfall is actually greater for the latter part of the last century.
“Australian mean rainfall total for 2007 was 497 mm, slightly more than the long-term average of 472 mm.”
Tom in florida,
Probably. The man wants to win, badly. This is not true of many NFL owners. Since I’m heading to wonderfully warm Florida in about 3 years I suppose I’ll root for the Bucs, but doubt I’ll ever stop rooting for Dallas.
5. CO2 is the main culprit and if we are to settle on 450 ppm it is now or never.
Just fwiw to throw in a bit of “perspective” around this 450 ppm disasterized CO2 concentration number – at which point everything will, snif – snif, die: the human body already exists quite comfortably, without any hyperventilation whatsoever, at a CO2 concentration level of about 56,000 ppm CO2 = 5.6%.
= pCO2 of human body/p total gas in body = 40-44 pCO2/p total gas in body = 40-44/ 713 {atm.p = 760 – [water vapor additition in the upper airways = 47] = 713} : 40-44/713 = ~ .056 = 5.6%, or higher to > 6.0% = 60,000 ppm, if you want.
So from a human physiology standpoint, 56,000/280->450 ppm just doesn’t seem to be worth getting all hot and bothered about, no? Especially since CO2->380 hasn’t bothered anyone yet, and in fact, clinically, CO2 > 70,000 ppm is the point at which CO2 seems to possibly start bothering people – and at about 150,000 ppm most people would probably be in some stage of “CO2 narcosis”.
So, noble AGWer’s, be sure to let me know when we’re starting to get close!
With all the snow and colder weather I thought you all might enjoy this that
I found at theospark.net (dec 23rd (older posts)).
Its a little long but appropriate as the earth cools down and more of you are finding
out that there is more snow to shovel as we move further into 2008/2009 winter
and effects of all this recent global warming going on!
Diary of a Snow Shoverler…….
December 8: 6:00 PM.
It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!
December 9:
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a lovelier place in the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I’ve ever had. I shoveled for the first time in years, felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again what a perfect life.
December 12:
The sun has melted all our lovely snow, such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry; we’ll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we’ll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I’ll never want to see snow again. I don’t think that’s possible. Bob is such a nice man, I’m glad he’s our neighbor.
December 14:
Snow, lovely snow! Last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn’t realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I’ll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn’t huff and puff so.
December 15:
20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4×4 Blazer. I Bought snow tires for the wife’s car and two extra shovels. I stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that’s silly. We aren’t in Alaska, after all.
December 16:
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.
December 17:
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for five hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should’ve bought a wood stove, but won’t admit it to her. God I hate it when she’s right. I can’t believe I’m freezing to death in my own living room.
December 20:
Electricity’s back on, but had another 14″ of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. That took all day. Goddamn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they’re too busy playing hockey. I think they’re lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they’re out. They might have another shipment in March. I think they’re lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he’s lying.
December 22:
Bob was right about a white Christmas, because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it’s so cold it probably won’t melt ’til August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel, and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again, I was too tired to shovel! Tried to hire Bob, who has a plow on his truck, for the rest of the winter; but he says he’s too busy. I
think the asshole is lying.
December 23:
Only 2″ of snow today, and it warmed up to “0”. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What, is she nuts!!! Why didn’t she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did, but I think she’s lying.
December 24:
6″ more snow. Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son-of-a-bitch who drives that snowplow, I’ll drag him through the snow by his balls and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over everywhere I’ve just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the Goddamn snowplow.
December 25:
Merry F#@%**>! Christmas. 20 more inches of the “@!#%&***”slop tonight. We are snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she’s a fricking idiot. If I have to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” one more time, I’m going to stuff her into the
microwave.
December 26:
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea.
She’s really getting on my nerves.
December 27:
Temperature dropped to -30, and the pipes froze. Plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him; he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.
December 28:
Warmed up to above -50. Still snowed in. The BITCH is driving me crazy!!!!!
December 29:
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That’s the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?
December 30:
Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver. He is now suing me for a million dollars; not for only the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his a$$. The wife went home to her mother. 9 more inches of snow predicted.
December 31:
I set fire to what’s left of the house. No more shoveling.
January 8:
Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me.
Why am I tied to the bed?
H/T Nebraska Bob
Reply: Dude, find it online and just post a link mmkay?
~ charles the moderator
Sorry, I was going to post just a link however all the web pages are very very long and
slow loading. There was a link as the title, however when I clicked on it, a message
said I was going to a secure website so I cancelled.
Reply: Ok, I hope I didn’t come across as too
…
…
…
wait for it…
…
…snippy.
~ charles the moderator
No charles, not at all, I just figured that you could delete it if you
found it to long.
I predict that Climate Change will continue, like it always has, not only through 2009, but ad infinitum, ad nauseum, on and on, for a very long time, and maybe even longer. And humans will continue to argue about it, not only through 2009, but ad infinitum, ad nauseum, on and on, for a very long time, and maybe even longer.
Aussie John (12:42:10) ~ Ah… you young’uns. I remember Victorian summers in degrees F. from the 40s and 50s, and one hundred degrees in the shade was a cool change back then…
MartinGAtkins (14:45:24) : “My prophecy for the future is that the ever pervasive unelected officials of governments will attempt shut down the internet.” ETC
As a prophet you rate high with me, Martin. I trust the second segment of your prophecy that: “We won’t tolerate it and nor will your children.” carries equal weight with the first segment, because the web must be truly galling to those who feel a mission to rule and see this loophole in control. I fear they will be harshly dedicated in their attempts to close it.
Graeme Rodaughan (14:47:57) : “Melbourne’s dams are at 34%. Which is very low, and lower than the same time last year.”
There is another take on this, Graeme; that in fact the Thompson, presently showing 20% full, is a wildcard in that the water from it is used for many and varied reasons that do not actually relate to “Melbourne’s water supply”. By adding the Thompson in to get the per cent full number, those who would cast fear amongst us have an added spook.
Our Melbourne water supply is down; but I do not think it as far down as government would prefer us to think.
The cities of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney are now developing massively costly desalination plants as a result of a collapse in river flows.
The desalination plant will be just like every socialist attempt at modernity – a costly flop! That is, if it ever gets off the ground and built in these days of economic difficulties and a bankrupt state government!
Which rivers are collapsing in the Metropolitan area?
I heard an interview a few months back with the NSW Environment minister. She said the Nepean had had only a splash of water over the past few years! In reality it was nearly flooding!
The Hawkesbury River, that the Nepean runs into, is tapped by the towns on its banks (North Richmond, Richmond, Windsor etc) for their water supply (and believe it or not the river is used at an effluent remover from these towns. Pity Brooklyn at the mouth :-))
And BTW when Sydney water restrictions were in place a couple of years ago people in the Hawkesbury were being hassled by the yellow vehicle water restriction police for using so-called water that had to be conserved!
In the past 30 years the population of Sydney has almost doubled! There have been no attempts to conserve and improve the water supply since then! Why? The greenies have jumped on every proposal to build new dams etc.
Global Warming may be a fact in your backyard, I don’t know because I don’t keep the statistics for your area but I do for the Hawkesbury. This year to-date (30th Dec 08) we have these figures
Mean Max 1928-2007 23.9C 2008 22.8C down 1.1C
Mean Min 1928-2007 11C 2008 10.3C down .7C
Rainfall Mean 1881-2007 798.3mm 2008 800mm up 1.7mm
For all these year 2008 was damn close to the average. Now I asked a couple of people locally what they think of the beautiful green countryside in the Hawkesbury this summer and asked hem if it was :-
a) Normal
b) Natural
c) Ideal
After we discussed their answer it was agreed that there were only two correct out of the three ie it was b) natural and c) ideal.
Why?
Because a) normally the Hawkesbury at this time of the year and for many years previously has been a brown, hot and humid place to live.
Temperatures fluctuate even in localised areas of the Hawkesbury it is called the local climate and is occasionally dealt severe blows by the weather conditions we experience.
Anthony, this is a great blog. Thank You.
BTW I have looked at the lon/lat Google map for Richmond RAAF base where the BOM stats are recorded. This RAAF base is not a busy place, I may have heard a couple of Hercules take off and land in the past weeks or so. The planes in the Google image are not parked there all the time so the location of the weather recording equipment may be quite good IMHO 🙂
Ken (20:38:21) :
Reminds me of the first year I moved to Leadville, Co in the early 70’s!
J. Peden (20:16:37) :
‘70,000 ppm is the point at which CO2 seems to possibly start bothering people – and at about 150,000 ppm most people would probably be in some stage of “CO2 narcosis”.’
Wouldn’t that only hold true if the atmosphere contain less than 18% of oxygen?
As ever, you can say a lot of things with statistics, and not all of them are true. It’s easy to get carried away, and especially to confuse weather with climate. They’re not the same thing.
This year has been the coolest year this century, but that statement hides the fact that 2008 was the ninth warmest year since 1880.
Here’s a scientific explanation of what is happening, and why it’s incorrect to interpret an end to global warming, however appealing that may seem. Quite the converse.
Meanwhile, next year seems unlikely to break any records, either. But we can can still expect to see 2009 as one of the five warmest years on record.
Happy New Year from a chilly, but still warming, London.
Thank you very much for correcting my typo on “1880”.
Apologies, too, since that comment somehow came through from the wrong blog. The correct site address should be http://roadsofstone.com
The roadsofstone.com address is for my geology-related site, rather than the more personal one, and so it’s more relevant if you have time to correct it. But it’s no big deal.
Thanks again and Happy New Year.
I love u eart, I love u human, I love u Gods………
Thanks for the good info. I hope people get out of the habit of listening to the environmental prophets of doom.
Roads (04:18:34) :
Here’s a scientific explanation of what is happening, and why it’s…..
That is a true statement if you exclude “scientific”.
Percy Drebell – It is the writers (perhaps the sub-editors rather than the named people) at the Daily Telegraph, not Phil Jones, who think that an increase in temperature of 0.21C is equal to an increase of 32.8F. While we can all make mistakes surely nobody with the any knowledge of science would make that particular error.
The correct quote from Jones is at the Met Office site and only uses Celsius. I guess that it is Telegraph policy always to provide Fahrenheit equivalents when temperatures are given in Celsius – unfortunately somebody does not know how to do that when dealing with changes in temperature.
“J. Peden (20:16:37) :
‘70,000 ppm is the point at which CO2 seems to possibly start bothering people – and at about 150,000 ppm most people would probably be in some stage of “CO2 narcosis”.’”
Info at http://www.inspect-ny.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm suggests your numbers are a bit high, although they confused me by stating that at lower levels we may be seeing effects of a reduction in the relative amount of oxygen rather than direct toxicity of CO2.
10,000 PPM …some may feel drowsy.
20,000 PPM:
before most people are aware of its presence.
Over that, may cause a feeling of heaviness in the chest and/or more frequent and deeper respirations.
At that level for several hours, minimal “acidosis” (an acid condition of the blood) may occur but more frequently is absent.
30,000 PPM Breathing rate doubles
50,000 PPM Breathing rate at 4 times.
Above that it is directly toxic.
Talk about jumping the gun huh!?
>I enjoy your posts. They’re like eating candy, they’re so much fun:
Smokey,
Do you have a point? The locks were installed to stop salt water intrusion into the lower lakes which was an escalating problem in droughts due to water diversions across the Murray Darling System. With record low inflow and record high temperatures in the current drought these lochs are now functioning as dykes.
Do you have evidence that it hasn’t been the hottest drought with the lowest inflows, or that rainfall in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra and Melbourne was not below average tin 2008? Do you have evidence that Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide are not planning and building desalination plants, or that Perth has not got one already running?
Being a “sceptic” does not mean pretending to be right all the time and disputing FACTS just because they are inconvenient to your faith.
I’d rather see a scientific explanation on why we think there is anything out of the ordinary happening at all, why we think it’s warmer now than any other integlacial or other times during this integlacial.
david,
You claimed that the lower reaches of the Murray River [ie, the river nearest the ocean] flowed below sea level, which prompted me to investigate.
‘Evidence’ is unnecessary for two reasons:
First, the burden of proof for the AGW/CO2 hypothesis is on those who believe that AGW is credible. It is up to the believers in AGW to provide the proof; it is not the duty of mainstream climatologists to prove that the climate is well within its normal and natural historical parameters.
And second, you’re talking about the weather, not the climate. I hope you understand the difference. [And regarding your ‘hottest’ droughts, they are not hot or cold. The polar regions are among the driest places on Earth.]
Droughts come and go, and their cycles have nothing to do with human activity. Furthermore, the current drought isn’t that severe by historical standards. The problem is more one of increasing population.
Australian droughts did not begin when humans arrived on the scene:
See, david, droughts happen despite human activity, not because of it [with the caveat that some activity can slightly alter the local weather, as has happened with Arizona’s CAP, and with the UHI effect].
Your turn, david. Make the next on a little more challenging, please.
David,
Oh yeah the heat in Australia is really bad. Please see this story from WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/christy-satellite-data-shows-earths-climate-is-changing-unevenly/
If you’ll notice, much of Australia has NOT changed in the last thirty years. The parts that have heated up have been rising at the rate of between .1 and .3C per decade.
Please…
0.1 to 0.3C/decade = 1 to 3C per century. The surface climate of Australia has warmed 1C in 50-100 years http://www.bom.gov.au/web01/ncc/www/cli_chg/trendmap/tmean/0112/aus/1910/latest.gif. Each 1C increase has been observed to result in a 15% decline in runoff.
If the weather in Australia has resulted in a temporary one degree C rise, then another location on the globe has witnessed a one degree C fall [on average].
The Earth’s average temperature is pretty much the same as it was thirty years ago.
Selecting one specific location in order to buttress the claim of AGW conflates weather with non-existent ‘global warming,’ which is occurring only in the minds of AGW believers.
Are you really trusting BOM numbers?
Why does everyone swallow everything that politicians and journalists tell us? When have they ever told us the truth? Why don’t people use their own brains and the internet to query and search to make up their own minds? Are they so ill-educated that they know nothing of history and the climate of the planet? I am appalled that friends of mine, who I thought were intelligent, thinking adults, accept this idiotic story without ever asking any questions at all and treat me as if I am the enemy because I tell them it stinks!
old construction worker:
Wouldn’t that [certain CO2 effects] only hold true if the atmosphere contain less than 18% of oxygen?
Garaka:
your numbers are a bit high
In short, “no”, though my 150,000ppm CO2 figure was intentionally hyperbolic – and not to discount your points!
Rough figures and certainly willing to stand correction:
At 18% atmospheric O2, inspired air would eventually have a pO2 of about 84 [vs a normal pO2 of about 100]: 760-47upper airway water vapor pressure = 713; 713 x .18 = 128 pO2; 128-44normal body pCO2 = 84. 84 is roughly about what would result from a 128pO2 when finally confronted with a 44pCO2 in the lungs’ alveoli.
But at, say, body pCO2 = 80 = 11.4% = 114,000ppm, the resulting pO2 of blood going to the tissues via arteries would be about pO2=44. “Arterial” pO2 = 44, while indicating something is wrong somewhere, is itself enough to at least sustain life and not decrease mental alertness, that is, if pCO2 is not up to around 60-80 where CO2 “narcosis” starts to result directly from the CO2 concentration itself.
But the “60-80” pCO2 range I’m giving for narcosis is only a ballpark figure, since in real life many not “normal” things happen. For example, I’ve seen true lab values from living patients which were supposedly totally impossible or at least utterly incompatible with the person’s clinical state.
I was mainly attempting to isolate the direct effect of certain concentrations of CO2 within the body from everything else to show that it itself is not really much of a “toxin” or a “pollutant”, in comparison to the “dire” consequences to life alleged from a 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration.
.01% = 100ppm, .1% = 1000ppm, 1% = 10,000ppm, 10% = 100,000ppm
450ppm = .045%
So an in-body partial pressure of pCO2 = 80 -> 80/713 = 11.4% = 114000ppm, and will itself most probably produce “narcosis”, meaning decreased level of mental alertness – that is, some degree of “coma”.
But .045% atmospheric CO2 is a far cry from the 11.4% needed to really significantly affect the human body.
A pCO2 of 80 will also produce “acidosis”, but the acidosis will become “compensated” – decreased by kidney bicarbonate retention and buffering – over time so that its effect itself is usually not life-threatening, unless the pCO2 of 80 is imposed suddenly. And even then the danger depends upon how the pCO2 = 80 is imposed.
A pCO2 of 80 itself will also decrease the body’s oxygen concentration to about a pO2 = 60 – down from a normal of ~ 100 – but this is not life threatening, due to the dissociation characteristics of the oxyhemoglobin molecule, so that at a pO2 = 60, hemoglobin is still carrying ~90% of its total O2 carrying capacity and can easily deliver adequate O2 to the tissues, including the brain. So, other things being equal, there will be no decreased mental alertness at pO2 = 60.
Even at pO2 = 40, hemoglobin is still carrying about 67% of its O2 as oxyhemoglobin, which it picked up while transiting the lungs’ alveoli, and which it can deliver to tissues depending upon their pO2’s.
Vanessa:
I am appalled that friends of mine, who I thought were intelligent, thinking adults, accept this idiotic story without ever asking any questions at all and treat me as if I am the enemy because I tell them it stinks!
Long story short, they ain’t your friends and they ain’t intelligent.
Vanessa,
Welcome to truth… it has never been popular, and it never will be… Get used to it.
Mike
because I tell them it stinks!
How about telling them something else, “Vanessa”?
J. Peden (12:48:53) :
Thanks for the explanation.
Birdwatchers from all over the UK are flocking to Cornwall for a very rare glimpse of a snowy owl.
It was first spotted on the Isles of Scilly before flying to the mainland where it was caught on camera.
The species has not been seen in Cornwall since 1948 and it is not clear why the bird has ended up so far from its natural arctic home.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7806501.stm
Hmm, maybe it fancied some GW for a change 🙂
Well I bet it fares better than polar bears that show up in Iceland! (BANG!)
The other side of a prediction is a recap.
Here’s a recap of 2008. Enjoy!
I predict that the 30-year moving average global temperature will continue to rise in 2009. I also predict that I will continue to get my AGW grant for the next 15 years, and then retire.
david (20:39:51) :
Each 1C increase has been observed to result in a 15% decline in runoff.
I added the bold on “result”. This is an unsubstantiated assertion of causality where at most there might be a correlation.
How do you know that reduced rainfall (and thus, runoff) did not ’cause’ the warming? How do you know that they are both not covariant with some other cause (such as PDO et. al. or solar variation)? How do you know they are not completely independent and it was coincidence? You don’t.
Richard North (12:19:23) :
And they’re starting early …
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE4BT49G20081230
2009 is going to be one of the warmest on record!
Reminds me ever so much of a gambler on a losing streak… “I just know I’ll win on the next roll. I’ve got to. I know I’m right. Put another $20 on hard way 8! ” repeat until broke.
gondwannabe (13:04:36) :
Warming, cooling, anthropogenic, natural? Here’s a thought – ending carbon addiction would allow us to move toward a world that isn’t bathing in foul hydrocarbons – pollution is a real and measurable threat to planetary health.
Um, no. Bacteria happily eat hydrocarbons. One must add agents to Diesel to prevent things growing in it. It is food to many organisms. It is also a natural part of the environment. There have been colonies of specialized organisms found living on the oil and natural gas from long term seeps. It takes a long time to evolve into a niche so this has been going on for a long time… While we don’t like bathing in oil, many other natural organisms do. Your assertion of foul is seriously self centered.
Oh yes, secondary benefits – we can say ‘adios’ to those oiligarchies;
Something I’d very much like to do, and that we could do immediately, if we were free to use our coal for coal to liquids. The AGW thesis makes us more dependent on oil, not less, since oil has more H per C than coal does, so it becomes forbidden to use coal to replace oil…
gain the ‘first mover’ benefit by building an alternate energy driven economy; re-deploy our rustbelt industries to mass produce the simple solar technologies that can’t compete with cheap oil and dirt cheap coal.
And just what is that ‘first mover’ benefit? Please note that the first company to exploit a new technology almost universally dies. It is replaced by a later entrant who can do it better given what is learned by the failures of the early adopters. That is the major risk in stock trading in development stage or early production companies. They typically pop, then drop hard to zero as a later entrant eats their lunch… Buy the IPO, then sell as soon as the stock ‘fails to advance’ to the upside.
How, exactly, do you use an old steel mill to make silicon ingots? How do you use a car assembly plant to make thin film flexible solar cells? Hmmm? The ‘re-deploy’ canard is a dead duck. You can’t. At best, you can bulldoze the site and rebuild from the ground up, but it would be much cheaper to do a ‘green field’ development in China with cheaper labor, lower taxes, and less regulation. (That’s why many of the hot solar stocks have Chinese addresses… and those that don’t often have an overseas assembly area with only the R&D in the U.S.)
I do agree with your conclusion that these technologies can not compete with dirt cheap oil and coal. Absolutely correct. IMHO, the only reason to make them artificially more competitive is to offset the monopoly power of OPEC. THAT means an import tax on OPEC oil (not on NAFTA origin oil and not on ‘fuel at the pump’ that hits all sources including alternatives) and a specific exemption of such taxes on fuels from coal, biomass and natural gas (that we in the US have in abundance).
The AGW agenda wants to kill coal use and gas to liquids. That is a serious mistake. Why? Because you can’t put electrons into our existing vehicle fleet. It takes over a decade and up to 2 decades to do a fleet turnover to a new fuel if we were already doing it, which we are not. The decision not to use coal to liquids and gas to liquids in favor of {solar, wind, hydrogen, whatever funny fuel} is by definition a decision to stay substantially dependent on oil for at least a decade and probably two for transportation. Think about it. Please.
You may all be right, but where is your vision for the future?
My vision: Put an import tariff on OPEC oil (or all oil outside NAFTA, CAFTA type agreements) such that OPEC oil retail price can not drop below $80/bbl. (Tariff = Greater of( 0, $80 – market price of oil) i.e. no negative tariff… This provide protection of ALL the alternatives from OPEC market manipulation by putting a floor on oil of $80/bbl but not taxing the alternatives.
The government does nothing else and leaves a level playing field for all the alternatives to compete in the market. Markets are far better at picking winning technologies than governments…
What I expect would happen: GTL, CTL, biomass/trash to liquids plants would sprout all over the place to provide non-OPEC fuel to the exiting fleet for the next decade+ while NAFTA source oil (i.e. Canada / Mexico) would go up in price a bit with sales diverted from non-U.S. buyers to the U.S. ) OVER TIME folks would choose to replace their present vehicles with hybrids, all electrics, hydrogen, dedicated CNG cars, whatever comes along as the domestic prices for the competitors jockey for position.
After 15 to 20 years most of the fleet would IMHO, be a mix of flex-fuel hybrids and electrics with some high efficiency Diesels running on synthetic fuels. All with minimal economic disruption and without government screwing things up with mandates. See Brazil and South Africa as existence proofs of the ability to run modern economies while telling OPEC to go pound sand.
Pamela Gray (13:44:33) :
re: predictions and other stuff
I predict it will be a long, cold winter and very short cool summer. Next winter will be just as cold if not colder than this one. Spring wheat on the upper flats around here will freeze again.
Pamela, thanks for the insight. It is valuable. JJG a grains composite exchange traded fund, is hard up off of a bottom. This confirms your expectation for grains to be rising. Why don’t the locals plant more barley? I understand there is a shortage of it in Germany for beer making due to biofuels demands… Or heck, just make more of those nummy local brews!
Ranchers will sell down their herd, raising market prices at the grocery store.
COW a beef, pork, etc. composite exchange traded fund was laying on a dead money bottom, but blipped up almost 4% last trade day. Is it possible that the herds are already sold off? IFF COW continues the blip into an up run (crosses 25, then 50 day simple moving averages) this could be the start of those higher grocery prices for meat… Unfortunately, I don’t know of any ETFs for hay, sheep, wool, etc. Those are specialty markets (i.e. futures, not ETFs) in the U.S. though BAL (cotton) after a 6 month drop from $50 to $24 looks like it’s started a reversal upside. Similar, though sloppier, chart for SGG (sugar) that still looks a bit ‘bottomy’. Guess the tropics haven’t cooled off as much yet 😉
By the way, the kerosene space heater I bought works great! Very quiet and warms a large room right up with no kerosene smell! No worries about burning oxygen up.
Having grown up in a similar leaky house, I can relate! I would encourage you to get a CO alarm, though. They are cheap and effective. It’s not the loss of O, it’s the production of CO. Once bound to hemoglobin it stays bound for a very long time so small concentrations can cause ‘issues’. And the drowsy / headache feelings don’t always warn in time… (I use a generator with an electric heater in emergencies, along with the fireplace insert. The waste heat from the generator can warm the garage (or barn or whatever needs it…) outside the house.) And you get lighting and TV to boot.
With 4300 sq ft of house, 10 foot ceilings, poured glass windows, single layer old wood floor over a deep and breezy crawl space, and a century-plus old framing with no insulation, I have plenty of ventilation. For those of you caught in storms with no electricity, these heaters are just the ticket.
We put fiberglass bats under the floor (they just clip in) and blown cellulose into the walls and it worked well (and was cheap!). Took three guys one Saturday. Oh, and blown cellulose into the attic. I think the payback period was about 2 years(!). I was pleasantly surprised at how much it cut down on the draftiness that a heater could never fix. The cold air sheeting down the walls headed across the floor to the heater just ended. That alone made it worth while. No more cold feet and hot head! One of the best things I ever did.
Robinson (16:22:50) :
(sorry, don’t know how to do hrefs!).
It isn’t hard, but frankly I like seeing the whole URL. I sometimes cut/paste them into a new browser window rather than just click and I get to inspect them before taking the link (so I can skip things that look suspicious… old admin habits…)
So please, don’t feel sorry! To some of us it’s a feature 😎
david (17:03:09) :
The fires have increased runoff not decreased them.
I thought there was typically an initial increase (bare land) then a reduction as regrowth establishes and takes its due…
and Adelaide is fast tracking a desalination plant
Recent advances in pressure recovery have made desalination much cheaper. It’s now cheaper to desalinate in California than to put in a dam and pipes from the mountains. This is a good thing. I like having pristine mountains and don’t at all mind having a desalination plant in / near the city… You say desalination like it was a bad thing 😉
as the Murray River (it’s main source of water) is now below sea level in its lower reaches and at severe risk of hyper salination and acifidification.
Isn’t that called ‘normal’ for brackish estuaries? Unless the river suddenly sunk into the ground I don’t see how it could be ‘now below sea level’ unless it was also below sea level a few years back too… San Francisco bay / delta region has frequent oscillations from salty to brackish to fresh as the seasons and climate cycles turn. There are specialized species that inhabit those fluctuating environments. If you left it ‘fresh’ all the time, they would die out from fresh species competition… your hypersalination is their relief.
Bill Marsh (20:15:46) :
Tom in florida,
Probably. The man wants to win, badly. This is not true of many NFL owners. Since I’m heading to wonderfully warm Florida in about 3 years I suppose I’ll root for the Bucs, but doubt I’ll ever stop rooting for Dallas.
You could always do what I do… I root for beer 😉
Roger Carr (23:45:13) :
the web must be truly galling to those who feel a mission to rule and see this loophole in control. I fear they will be harshly dedicated in their attempts to close it.
It’s hard to close. Folks can always bypass the controls. The original purpose of the DARPA project was to create a robust self healing system that could not be shut down by an adversary…
Example? I can have my computer call your computer and exchange data… you now have to shut down all dial up telecommunications. Google “stunnel” . That lets me tunnel secure links through the public domain, now you have to shut down all IP traffic. The list goes on. I can hide on the other side of a non-IP link…
As long as there are folks wanting to exchange information, they can make a meta-internet hidden in plain site on (or under) the ‘approved’ internet and the ‘approved’ telephone system (or even in packet radio or spread spectrum or.. )
Example? In the hills above Sacramento there was no provider of high speed internet. Some locals got tired of waiting and built their own wireless system… One guy got a leased line and the rest piggy back off of him via home brew (legal!) low power wireless. Another? I know a guy in the Santa Cruise mountains with an 802.11 (sub whatever) link in a home brew ‘coffee can’ focusing mount that gets his network from a friend a few hundreds of meters away.
And I’ve set up many commercial private networks between sites using encrypted tunnels (VPN) through the public internet. It’s very common. I’ve had hundreds of folks with the ‘corporate’ network in their home, or on their laptop wherever they were.
The only thing that would be a ‘tricky bit’ would be getting folks vetted for participation on the clandestine net and getting them up to speed about how to have their own DNS server with the private domain in it and maybe having a tweaked search engine to service it. Keeping the DNS ‘right’ would be the biggest issue, especially if you used dynamic swapping of servers.
Any serious attempt to curtail freedom of speech will not work. Not when I can put 8 GB on an SD card and have a $100 disposable server pop up in the local free WiFi access point (from a wireless connection from the bushes outside the store… or that smoke detector in the hallway…) then stunnel that to a portal somewhere else that makes it ‘public’ … also from a disposable server… but in another jurisdiction…
It’s whackamole on an unimaginable scale. And a bit of dynamic routing on the private network can keep the actual sources and the actual portals in constant flux and their real IPs hidden. Make the Borg look manageable…
And don’t even get me started about cryptographic distributed file systems and cluster servers based on distributed home machines… think of a DDS attack but instead of a Distributed Denial of Service it’s a Distributed Provider of Service… It might have some stability and reliability issues from time to time, but information would flow. All they can stop is the casual discovery of information by the uninitiated.
(Then again, maybe I spent too much time working computer security and forensics. It leaves you with a certain cynical paranoid view… then again, again never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of DVDs… it’s a long time between packets, but boy, when that packet arrives! )
Final sidebar: Remember the DeCSS shutdown attempt? Folks ended up printing the code on T-shirts and begging for a 1st amendment suit? I actually published a link to the DeCSS code at the time the court had ruled it (temporarily) illegal to put it on the internet (via restraining order I think). The target of the link? The courthouse web pages where the suit was filed… the code was in the online version of the suit in public court documents 😉 Sweet…
EM Smith
You said
“We put fiberglass bats under the floor (they just clip in)”
What are they?
I am currently tucking insulation into our crawl space. Previously I would have used glass fibre rolls-very itchy and unpleasant but now I use material made from recycled plastic bottles. However because it is being tucked into what is in effect the ceiling of the undehouse it doesnt always stay there-something about obeying Newtons law of gravity. So any link you can give to your bats would be interesting.
TonyB
david (12:45:25) :
salt water intrusion into the lower lakes which was an escalating problem in droughts due to water diversions across the Murray Darling System.
Oh, so the problem is not global warming, it’s been water diversions all along!
Thanks for clarifying that…
TonyB (16:49:30) :
EM Smith
You said
“We put fiberglass bats under the floor (they just clip in)”
What are they?
Bats are just pre-cut chunks of the roll stuff. Standard width and length. (16 inches by 4 foot?) The thing you care about are the clips. They are just a chunk of (about 10 ga?) iron wire that gets put at each end to support the bat. I don’t remember how they were put in (pointy or had friction fit ends) and don’t really want to go under the house and look!
They were standard stuff in the installers van. I’d expect them to be sold by the gross at the same places that sell insulation. If you can’t find them, just cut some iron wire of thick enough gage (coat hanger wire) about 2-4 cm longer than the space between the joists. Slap insulation in, then sweep wire in between joists toward the end until the tips of the wire enter the space between the joists and ‘drag’ on the wood. Stop. The wire ought to now be wedged in and holding up bat. You may need to play a bit with the wire length (longer lets the wire be angled more or have greater spring tension, shorter makes it more precise looking but harder to fit..) I think it was 3 or 4 of these for most bats, but your weight may need more / less.
Lift bat, slap clip, slap clip, slap clip, slap clip. Next bat, slap …
More info on batt insulation
2008-the year man-made global warming was disproved
The weathermen can’t tell us for sure if it will rain not next Tuesday, but some people claim they can predict temperature patterns for the coming years and even decades. The arrogance of some scientists and journalists is appalling.