The “King of Cool” writes in our recent Open Thread
Weather is never just weather
Says Sophie Cunningham in her new book which she is promoting all over Australia at the moment warning us to be afraid, extremely afraid.
Why? Well, guess what – this year marks the fortieth anniversary of Cyclone Tracy which hit the city of Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974, killing 71 people, destroying 80% of the houses and leaving 41,000 of the 47,000 inhabitants homeless.
(Expect lots and lots more cyclone hysteria leading up to Dec 24)
Listen here to Sophie’s grave warning on the ABC (17.44 on the download audio):
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/thelist/tracy/5673802
“We can expect more Tracys unless we begin to take climate change seriously” Sophie tells us.
“In the last three decades the number of cyclones and hurricanes has remained constant, but the number of Category 4 and 5 cyclones has increased. Cyclone Tracy, the cyclone that wiped out Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, was a Category 4 cyclone”.
http://thehoopla.com.au/tracys-extreme-weather-lessons/
The number of Category 4 and 5 cyclones has increased? Really!
Hey, hang on for a minute Sophie; this is what the BOM actually says about cyclones:
“Trends in tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region (south of the equator; 90–160°E) show that the total number of cyclones appears to have decreased to the mid 1980s, and remained nearly stable since. The number of severe tropical cyclones (minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa) shows no clear trend over the past 40 years.”
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
Ok it also says that:
“There is substantial evidence from theory and model experiments that the large-scale environment in which tropical cyclones form and evolve is changing as a result of greenhouse warming. Projected changes in the number and intensity of tropical cyclones are subject to the sources of uncertainty inherent in climate change projections. There remains uncertainty in the future change in tropical cyclone frequency (the number of tropical cyclones in a given period) projected by climate models.”
And if you go to the technical report link it does state:
“Substantial disagreement remains between climate models concerning future changes in tropical cyclone intensity, although the highest resolution models show evidence of an increase in tropical cyclone intensity in a warmer world”
(Wonder what the lowest resolutions say?)
Sorry Sophie, when am I going to build my cyclone shelter in Sydney?
When we see something different on this trend graph of the REAL world, not the imagined model one:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/images/tc-graph-1969-2012.png
================================================================
Cyclone Tracy damage:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I remember Tracy as we had a number of friends living in Darwin. One complained bitterly during the night of the cyclone that the builder was no good. He forgave him in the morning as his was the only house in the street standing. The only damage was from a passing caravan. The other lost everything except the huge oak four poster bed that his and the two neighbouring families took refuge under. The house he build afterwards was 8inch RSJs holding down a concrete slab roof.
Tracy was intense but small. It didn’t last more that 50km once it made landfall.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/tracy.shtml
Have a look at cyclone Vance that tracked across Onslow on the West Australian coast and then into the Great Australian Bight. It was still category 1 after travelling across alomost 2000 km of land!
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/vance.shtml
This is just nutty. Tracy followed a very strong La Niña in exactly the way that Yasi did. In similar fashion Brisbane was flooded in 1974 as it was a couple of years ago. If this deranged person cannot see that the patterns are cyclical then she has no right promoting such twaddle.
My prediction:
We can expect more Sophie Cunninghams unless we begin to take critical thinking and statistical understanding of climate change seriously.
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
If you think it’s weather…
But it’s not!
It’s.. Climate!
observa:
That piece from the telegraph just goes to show that some “climate acivists” can become disressed by their cause in exactly the same way as some followers of any religion. It’s better to keep the thing in its place, but some become overwhelmed by it. Oh dear.
I was unfortunate enough to hear her this arvo on RN
so we had naomi oreskes featured yesterday and theis dweeb today.
both moderate as FICTION writers and both being touted as telling the truth about whats to be expected.
Good ol aunty abc..home of the greenest and most dangerous media aus has ever seen.
I want my 8c or 11c or whatever it is now a day, for this propagandised psuedo unbiased GOVT communications mob ..refunded!
I agree. And so does Fowler’s Modern English Usage, “plural anomalies” #4, “The three Marys at the Crucifixion.”
Early on in our history of westward expansion, only those pioneers who could tolerate extreme conditions and prosper in spite of those conditions made it out here to become the independent, unruly lot that “grew” the beginnings of the modern West. Further back in time the North American colonies were initially filled with shiploads of immigrants who like the pioneers of later time, could tolerate extreme conditions and prosper in spite of them. Many immigrants came from Ireland. And in particular the colonizing minded people of Northern Ireland and their extreme dislike of dictates from kings, queens, lords, and ladies. I come from a long line of such people starting way back in the Northern parts of Ireland on both sides of the family tree(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Scots_people). We seem able to tolerate extreme conditions good and bad and are fiercely independent in our thinking, preferring an unregulated inherently risky land populated with self-determining people over gentrified packaged subdivisions populated with Home Owners Association rule-abiding people in each and every generation. I sincerely doubt this author has such a background and constitution to the point she likely blames a bad bowl movement on something other than her own habits.
Ed Martin
Are coming to heavy rainfall in the north-central states.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/23/0000Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=-98.13,43.31,1469
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/23/0000Z/wind/isobaric/700hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-98.13,43.31,1469
L. E. Joiner says:
August 16, 2014 at 6:08 pm
Others may differ, but the convention I observe is this: If ‘tracy’ were a common noun, then more than one would be ‘tracies’. But since Tracy is a proper noun, the proper plural is ‘Tracys’.
The convention as I see it is a trifle more complex: It is not just that Tracy is a proper noun, it is that it is a surname that causes us to inflect the plural differently from other proper nouns, such as when a company name ends with an otherwise common noun. Thus, we can talk about the proliferation of National Biscuit Companies, but, when pressed, I must inform you that my neighbors, the Tracys, are very nice people. Similarly, Tom Moose, across the street, is the paterfamilias to the Mooses, not the Moose; his brother-in-law, Dick Goose, heads the Gooses, not the Geese.
Tracey struck Darwin head on with the eye directly overhead. It was small in area and places not far away were not as badly damaged. True, the building requirements at the time did not place much regard to strength. Since then all homes are very strong with a mandatory safe room. Also, in January 1974 the big city Brisbane sustained a huge flood from a dying cyclone dumping 36″ a day in some parts. Thus, if AGW was in favour at the time 1974 in Australia would have proved to many it existed. However, in 1936 Darwin was razed by a similar cyclone. And in 1893 Brisbane suffered two greater floods a week or so apart. No one thought of CO2 in those days.
I should add that Brisbane ( a city now over 2 million) also in Nov’ 1973 experienced rare but destructive tornado whose power was beyond living memory. Add that to the 2 events in 1974 above would have had the AGW adherents in full cry. But we all just took it in our stride at the time. Anyone age 30 or less today would be aghast if such a sequence of weather events happened again.
Sorry to annoy again. But in 2011 another wet season affected Queensland and Brisbane was flooded again. Senator Bob Brown of the Greens Party argued that this time it was caused by Queensland’s coal mines. So, he said,the coal mine companies should have paid for all the flood damage. Logical, but only from his point of view and others like him.