Guest essay by Viv Forbes
No doubt we will hear how the current heatwaves in Australia are “unprecedented” and evidence of dangerous man-made global warming.
They are neither “global” nor “unprecedented”.
In the great heatwave of 1896, with nearly 200 deaths, the temperature at Bourke did not fall below 45.6 degC for six weeks, and the maximum was 53.3 degC. Bushfires raged throughout NSW and 66 people perished in the heat.
In 1897, Perth had an 18 day heatwave with a record of 43.3 degC. Other heatwaves were reported at Winton, 1891, Melbourne 1892, Boulia 1901, Sydney 1903, Perth 1906 and so on.
Why don’t we hear of these severe heatwaves from the past? Simple – the government Bureau of Meteorology conveniently ignores all temperature records before 1910.
However, that does not excuse our media for neglecting the written records such as these preserved in newspapers of the past.
Could it be that both the BOM and some of the media are still trying to preserve the ailing global warming scare?
@Nick Stokes “Melbourne’s three consecutive days above 40°C was the first time this had occurred since 1959″
That is three days, not four.
Well, with respect, that rather makes the point that these rare events have happened in the past. If you wanted to say that Australia as a whole has gotten significantly hotter to the extent that these rare, extreme heat waves are happening more often, then you would need to show evidence of that. Otherwise it is just weather.
And you would need to get past, or at least acknowledge the suspicion that the BoM have adjusted the record to show warming. The point of posts such as these is to put some context to the tendency to see any kind of extreme weather as evidence of man made global warming – I don’t think it is meant to do any more than that.
This is a large 103 page document.
Ctrl F “adjustments”, “homogenisation”
‘Techniques involved in developing the Australian
Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air
Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset’
http://www.cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf
So here in Melbourne we had “The Heatwave Of The Century!”
Which occurred last time……. A Century ago.
Am I missing something unusual here? A Century style heatwave occurs once each Century, and it’s “human caused global warming”?
Me thinks some global warming people out there have been pecked on the head too many times by Nick Stoke’s emus.
I just don’t understand this CO2 hypothesis and the associated complex feedbacks associated with water vapour and clouds. But commonsense tells me that back in the 1890’s, when CO2 levels were 20 times less, why was it so hot? If the hypothesis/theory/science-is settled is correct then all heat records should have been broken during the last decade.
Heatwaves are nothing new in Australia, Australia is a land of extremes that covers a wide range of climatic zones.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@ur momisugly.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~Australia%27s%20climate~143
Heatwaves in Australia’s past. Steven Goddard has over the years been digging into the archives.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/?s=australia+heatwave
Heatwaves of the past in Australia.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=australia+heatwave
drumphil says:
January 20, 2014 at 9:47 pm
“Not correct SideShowBob, those will be misleading trends where the BoM has adjusted the past to be cooler.”
Have you got a source and evidence for this? Even our conservative government who are scaling back action on mitigating warming make no such claim. The BOM is a well respected institution within Australia.
If you actually have some good evidence to back this claim up, then great, we have something to discuss, but if you are making this claim based on an extrapolation of your ideological view of these issues, then that is pretty weak if you ask me.
==go to
Kenskingdom@wordpress.com
hes sorted years of BoM records and bullshit.
and mate..they ARE LYING!
Found a good link here: http://www.waclimate.net/extreme-temperatures.html
the other odd thing?? we got the usual cool change for most of the hot states by friday arvo..
now?
most of us are back to LOWER than “normal” summer temps and NOT ONE WORD said by the msm warmist shills..funny that!
In my youth in Melbourne, I remember lots of heatwaves over 40. If you look at how this last one occurred (IE Via a northwesterly headed direct from the desert across Victoria) it’s clear this was just weather brought on by just a little trough, and the remains of a cyclone. A northwesterly wind in the middle of summer is going to make Melbourne/Adelaide hot in the same way a south westerly can make Brisbane warm.
It’s just weather
Mick In The Hills says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:53 pm
Preparing for possibility of bushfire, raking up around the homestead, I noticed that after 4 days of >40C the dry leaf litter build-up from our nearby stringy-barks (eucalyptus trees) was more than had accumulated in the previous 4 months.
It’s as if these trees are going: “hey, it’s time to burn – let’s get some kindling on the ground around us”.
Anyone know the natural reaction of stringy-barks to hot weather?
=
yeah Mick, ALL the gums inc reds well rooted in deep clay as well as african pepper trees will shed older leaves in the hot days, I sit n watch em float down.. my stingybarks ditto.
they drop the older leaves to ease their need for water , keep the tender young shoots alive and to lighten the load on stressed branches ie weight.
they will also stop flowering as the temps reach degrees wher ethe flowers will burn and nectar n pollen will drop almost overnight. I help run bees and how the trees are so damn fast in adaptations is frankly staggering.
As you know people are always disputin’ older temperatures while others are adjustin’. Below are a few primers.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/01/forgotten-historic-hot-temperatures-recorded-with-detail-and-care-in-adelaide/
http://joannenova.com.au/tag/australian-temperatures/
SideShowBob , here is the lowdown on BOM from before this year. Can you trust people whose lavish funding depends on heatwaves and scare stories. Same with NASA GISS.
Agnostic says: January 21, 2014 at 2:30 am
“And you would need to get past, or at least acknowledge the suspicion that the BoM have adjusted the record to show warming.”
Well, it would be good if someone would offer some actual evidence, instead of baseless suspicion.
GHCN Daily files can be found here. They are unadjusted historic temperatures. Melbourne’s file is ASN00086071.dly.
How do we know it hasn’t been adjusted to cool the past? Some clues. Folks like me know from way back that for a long time Australia’s hottest temp in a capital city was Black Friday, Jan 13 1939 Melbourne at 114.1 °F. Check the file – 45.6 on that day. That’s 114.1°F.
Another clue is from KenB (12:32 am above). He quotes the Commonwealth Yearbook of 1913, saying that the highest temp recorded in Melb to that date was 111°F. Check the GHCN file and yes, the max ever recorded from 1855 to 1913 was 44.2°C (111°F) on 17 Jan 1908. Hasn’t changed.
We had 2 days of 111°F last week.
yeah nick, but australia is a surprisingly small fraction of the earth’s surface….you know…regional weather isnt global climate…
so two hot days means what?
I’m not sure what the graphic in the OP says about _global_ warming, but it shows quite clearly that Australia is having more extreme heat, the closer you get to the present. Just bucket all the dates on the graphic by decade. Many more recent dates than earlier dates. If Australia’s weather was random, but with a constant average over the last century, you would expect the highs to be distributed through time more evenly. Instead, there is a trend. Pointing out that there were high temps in the past when there are many more highs recently is why this is anecdote, not evidence.
If anyone wants to look at the GHCN Daily record of Melbourne maxima to get real numbers instead of anecdotes, I’ve put a CSV file here. It covers June 1855 to Dec 2013. You can read it into Excel.
From reading those JoNova BOM stories, it’s more than clear climate-gate has a long way to run. The BOM temperature dataset reeks of corruption, and the BOM is deeply and willingly ignorant regarding historic max and mins. The credibility of the agency has been demolished by its own malfeasance.
But it’s going to take years to get this mess knocked back into shape. Probably going to take a Royal Commission scale of national inquiry to fully expose this abysmal federal agency charade. I guess all that’s left is to get the Government to initiate a major inquiry into the BOM as I think we’re now past the mere dataset audit stage.
And still, according to the data I’ve seen, the hottest EVAH temperature in Australia was during 1893…
David vun Kannon says:
“I’m not sure what the graphic in the OP says about _global_ warming…”
It says nothing about global warming.
And:
“Australia is having more extreme heat…”
So what? Read the title of the article again.
And:
“…you would expect the highs to be distributed through time more evenly…”
The real world doesn’t work that way.
Once again, for the benefit of the True Believer cult:
There is no testable, measurable scientific evidence showing any “human fingerprint of global warming”. None. Be as frightened of “carbon” as you wish. But don’t assume there is any scientific evidence supporting it, because there’s not. It is simply a grant-fueled scare.
Marble Bar, Australia in 1923-24. At or over 100F for 160 consecutive days: http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp1.htm
Now THAT’s a heat wave. I wonder how the media would report that one today?
SideShowBob says:
January 20, 2014 at 8:42 pm
For actual Australian temperature trends over time see the BOM website
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have to be kidding. BOM is as bad as Hansen’s GISS when it comes to adjusting temperatures.
SEE: Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records and other articles at Jo Nova’s on Australian Temperatures
While the news screamed “Sydney swelters in 5th day of extreme heat wave conditions” it never reached 29C! At one stage I actually felt a bit chilly in the CBD.
Unmentionable says: @ur momisugly January 20, 2014 at 9:38 pm
The wimps should try 38C in 90% humidity. I’ll take 42C with very low humidity any day of the week. At least I won’t feel like I am drowning and I will be able to see without wiping my face every ten seconds.
I strongly sympathize with you ‘southerners’ from Down Under. I live in the far south central USA. Close enough to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to enjoy the humidity in all its evaporative cooling prevention, yet far enough away to enjoy the continental high temps during our summer.
I recall a late 80’s heat wave here of daily highs between 105 – 112 with tangible humidity and practically no wind. Brutal, but like you say. Adaptable, with plenty of water to drink.
In 2011 here we had over a month of daily highs in excess of 100F. The media made all the hay they could out of it. Actually all the hay had to be imported (literally and figuratively), because that summer was the second or third worst drought on record, winds were westerly from Texas, and the actual feel of the heat was much more comfy than the thermometer would suggest.
It’s really all about the Joule’s and calories rather than the temperature.
Nick Stokes says:
January 21, 2014 at 4:13 am
Note folks that this Nick Stokes is a dissembler, I didn’t quote as Stokes implies cleverly
” from the Commonwealth year Book of 1913″
He well knows that this is the official Meteorology of Australia issued by the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne 1913 and titled “The Climate and Weather of Australia” issued by.H. A .Hunt Commonwealth Meteorologist that eventually changed title to be the present Australian Bureau of Meteorology – but of course in those days 1913 these Meteorologist it is a 79 page booklet, but of course well before the Global warming meme was promoted.
The Prefatory note reads in part – “In submitting this small work to the public, we venture to express the hope that it may prove acceptable as being the first effort in the nature of a text-book that has been published on Australian Meteorology”
There are lots of interesting maps and charts displayed – The Bureau when it was formally created by the Commonwealth of Australia took into their custody such records as had been maintained by the various state Meteorology entities. with many mentions of data extending back to 1853 regarding flood data and barometric pressures associated with extreme weather events. Hot spells in Southern Australia
The maximum Temperatures for Melbourne for the five days 30th January -3rd February, 1912 were 96.4 degree F, 102.6 F, 106.5 F, 105.9 F respectively, it goes on to say
“much the same factors appear to be at work during the still more severe and in Melbourne record spell of heat from 15th to 20th January 1908, the successive maxima at the Weather Bureau being 102.0 F 106.7 F, 109.3 F,104.1 F, 105.7 F and 107.5 F (page 81) Now of course the Melbourne of 1908 was nothing like the sprawling population it is today – When you check temperatures as you drive into greater Melbourne their is on average a 3 degrees celcius difference from the rural so any record that Nick’s mates claim should be much much higher than the piddling temperatures `they are cherry picking and relying on, and you can see the reason that to keep the myth of temperatures always getting hotter, some crafty adjustments were required. Simple maths and common sense.
Going back to the page 11 Capital city extremes in Farenheit .Adelaide has sweltered as shown in that chart with December extreme of 114 F, January extreme of 116 F, February 114 F, and again in 1913 when the chart was compiled had nothing like the population it has today and a UHI footprint that adds degrees to the now Celcius temperature record.
So Nicks attempted diversions and claims in themselves proves that something smells in the modern hyped temperatures that they are trying to politically sell us today – absolute nonsense.
“racehorse” is an apt nickname …….that our host has applied to him.