Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In early February Aussie Climate Scientist Mark Howden explained how Climate Change Robs Australia of Rain. In late February, Howden explained how Climate Change makes floods more likely.
Climate change robs Australia of rain
Tracey Ferrier
Published: Wednesday, 9 February 2022 7:13 PM AEDT
Vast swathes of Australia have already lost 20 per cent of their rainfall and the country’s fire risk has gone beyond worst-case scenarios developed just a few years ago, a renowned climate expert says.
Australian National University Professor Mark Howden is a vice-chair of the world’s leading authority on climate science and says despite dire, repeated warnings “our foot is not off the climate change accelerator”.
“There is no reason to feel comfortable about how fire is evolving at the moment,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vice-chair said on Wednesday, during a look back at the disasters climate change fuelled last year.
He warned that without urgent action, conditions that spawned the devastating Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 could be the new normal by the end of this decade.
…
Read more: https://7news.com.au/weather/environment/climate-change-robs-australia-of-rain-c-5634883
Just a few weeks later, and Mark Howden appears to be presenting a slightly different perspective on the “settled science”.
Climate scientists warn global heating means Australia facing more catastrophic storms and floods
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says climate effects expected to be more severe than initially predicted
Adam Morton Climate and environment editor @adamlmorton Mon 28 Feb 2022 22.00 AEDT
Catastrophic flooding on the scale of the disaster hitting Queensland and New South Wales is becoming more likely as the planet heats due to greenhouse gas emissions, climate scientists have warned.
The latest major assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found global warming caused by humans was causing dangerous and widespread disruption, with many effects expected to be more severe than predicted.
…
Prof Mark Howden, vice-chair of the IPCC working group behind the report and director of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, said the evidence showed “climate change impacts are here, they matter, they are mostly negative but, if implemented, adaptation can take the edge off them”.
…
“It’s more likely you’re going to see this in the future with climate change because of the warmer atmosphere, and the ability to hold more moisture in the warmer atmosphere,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/28/climate-scientists-warn-global-heating-means-australia-facing-more-catastrophic-storms-and-floods
I know this site has a lot of climate skeptics, but I think we all need to acknowledge that climate science finally got a prediction right for once, with their prediction that when Australia is dry it is dry, except when it is wet.
No doubt a friend of Flim Flam Flannery!
Except with differing alarmist predictions. One says the floods are coming, the other, the dams won’t fill. Between them there is a bet each way.
Perhaps this “Renowned Climate Expert” will go out On Strike with the other Climate Yahoos
Surely they know by now that a “Renowned (crisis) climate scientist” is an object of derision. They have never had a successful prediction and have lost every debate against sceptical opponents. I guess the second trait is really a restatement of the first.
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/
Climateers have solved these problems by equivocating warming and cooling and wettening and drying in their forecasts and they have learned to only deal in timeframes safely greater than a lifetime.
Debates? They have agreed en block not to debate!! Shame, shame on these renowned troughers and deceivers.
That way they can safely and honestly claim to have never lost a debate. Climate Scientists are truly Master Debaters
AKA Tom Foolery.
Heads I win, tails you lose!
So…because of climate change, Australia will be drier when it isn’t flooding. but it will be flooding much more often? CO2 is the most magical substance since the Harry Potter series.
There is a man-made solution for floods and dry periods…it’s called a dam. Seems man has used them since before the Egyptian times. Probably way too technical for a climate scientist to grasp though.
CO2 is The One Ring. Where’s Gollum when you need him?
One gas to rule them all. One gas to find them. One gas to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
You are right. “Dam” is a rather elaborate concept, it takes a lot of well trained intelligence to grasp its meaning.
And while using the Dam concept to level out droughts and floods you can discharge water through a turbine and generate some of that Green Electricity.
but building a dam might cause some insect to go extinct- gotta think about that- so the enviro impact study will take decades to protect the bug
yeah and everytime we flood like this and people sanely ask for dams
the greentards/aboriginal wannabe owners kick up an A grade stink and zero happens..and then we go to drought and flood all over again
Oh you mean “carbon pollution”.
/sarc
Build More Dams! There how easy was that?
For a long time I have felt that climate science is like the moomintroll cartoon weather report: “Warm, possibly cold. Sunny but possibly rain and wind between north and south. ”
For some strange reason the moomin weather report is correct every time … almost!
50% of the time.
Wrong! More, much more: 97% of the time!
“Mark Howden appears to be presenting a slightly different
perspective on the “settled science”.”
It isn’t a different perspective. You just have to get your head around the fact that Australia is a big place, where different things happen, and at different times.
There are three things that bring rain to parts of our dry continent
1. Westerlies in winter (Roaring Forties) for SW WA to Vic/Tas
2. SE Trade Winds for East Coast
3. Monsoons for the North in summer/autumn.
Of these the westerlies are receding to the S, and the monsoons are advancing. No clear expectation of change in the Trades. Some parts get wetter, some drier.
The receding of the westerlies is already having a major drought effect on the wheat farms of SW WA, where they depend on winter rain. This is not just climate theory.
Nor is the advance of the monsoons in the North. And this is affecting regions well to the south, and contributes to heavy rainfall in summer.
Even in places like SE Qld, you can get both at the same time. There are factors that are making the wet season shorter at each end. But the extra humidity means that the rainfall is more intense. So, yes, you get more flooding, and also more bushfires as the dry heat persists into Dec/Jan.
” So, yes, you get more flooding, and also more bushfires as the dry heat persists into Dec/Jan”
Except of course when you don’t.
Yes. But more frequently, we do.
Except all that was happening historically long before CAGW 🙂
Nick,
Will you please show data?Observational (not model) data, not cherry picked, not not adjusted, not homogenised,?
Geoff S
Geoff,
They are in the links. But to spell it out, here are the changes to winter rainfall in SW WA:
?itok=GNrMAkqG
And here are the changes to summer rainfall:
I made a comment along the following lines on Jo Nova’s blog just recently. With reader’s forbearance I now repeat it, as it also appears apropos to the current commentary here:
It is important to appreciate that the younger generations seem to only believe that history began on the day they were born. I have linked the following: https://longpaddock.qld.gov.au/rainfall-poster/ on numerous blogs over the years (including this one I guess) in an attempt to give commenters who fall into the short history category a better (longer) perspective. Of course it is not just flooding rains & droughts & bush fires & coral bleaching etc (or heck even wars between nations) that seemingly repeat endlessly over time. It is the silliness of humanity who also fail to learn from past knowledge or mistakes.
The Long Paddock poster series (Linked above) is a brilliant concept and learning tool (regularly updated). These posters ought to be prominently displayed in the weather and environment newsrooms of every MSM outlet in Australia. I bet they aren’t. And how about in environmental lecture theatres and climate (?) labs also?
Finally, both Nick Stokes and Mark Howden would be very familiar with the above Linked charts that are highly relevant to studies on Australia’s weather and climate. I’m also very disappointed that they choose not to apparently reference them in their comments on blogs or in the MSM. Although both these gentlemen are now of ‘advancing’ years, it would seem they too may be identified with those who believe that history only began on the day they were born?
It appears that the rainfall and pasture growth is cyclical. Both rise and fall over the time periods shown.
I’m not sure saying that people today think history began when they were born is correct. It would appear that it is more that history started the prior year!
Bill, you deserve a +100 for the excellent poster series link. Growing up sixty years ago on the other side of the world in an area like Alice Springs, I wish I could have a similar visualization of that area. I saw a recent video taken over an extensive area some fifty miles from the town. It was covered with an incredible amount of water flowing across the semi-desert terrain where I remember as little as 4 inches of rain in few thundershowers in a year.
Yes, as I said, the monsoon rains are coming further south.
But Nick,
What has that got to do with the hand of Man?
Why are you fussing about something that is just natural variation? Geoff S
I like those maps back to the 1800’s for the rainfall for WA and the linking to the SOI.
Bill, I imagine inviting all my climate alarmist friends for coffee and to view a large framed print of “Australia’s variable rainfall poster.” To make sure they get it I would stick large letters over the poster: Empirical evidence of why I reject climate alarmism.
“the younger generations seem to only believe that history began on the day they were born. “
They are wrong, of course. History ended on the day I was born. Everything since 1946 is Current Affairs.
According to BoM declining at 30mm per decade since about 1916. Average about 650mm
Due to multiple depressions (L) draining over location X or elsewhere. Same as in Chennai.
Only in India the rainfall increase is smaller.
Not disaster material at all, only for those who build on river plains or dry lake bottoms (s/cheap land).
Just a question Nick : why does the [ 5 year running ?] mean pause at the year 2015 in the ‘ Very Large Variability ” bracket ? Five years are shaved from the start of the series too . As I perceive it the Northern Australia summer rainfall average totals are gradually dipping back to the levels of a century ago and the mid 1980’s .The mauve shaded inset caption stipulates ” Northern Australia’s rainfall varies a great deal from year to year” …..Indeed. There is no detectable ‘global warming ‘ signal in that 120 year timescale ………….Furthermore the South West WA wheatbelt that just experienced waterlogged soils in ” the south and western rim of the grain belt ” [ see link below ] and recently yielded more than 38 per cent of Australia’s bumper 2021 grain crop, is not a drought-scape [ ” the receding of the westerlies is having a major drought effect on the wheat farms of SW WA “? ] despite shifting winter rainfall patterns since the 1970’s …………On historical timescales we are not ‘getting more flooding ‘ either
“why does the [ 5 year running ?] mean pause at the year 2015″
I think it is a centered 10 year running mean. So it loses 5 years at each end because they don’t have a 10 year period.
You think it is a ‘centered ‘ 10 year running mean but have not verified it ? Well thanks very much . It looks like a 5 year mean Quite the sneaky character aren’t you ? Are the Northern Australian Summer rainfall totals dipping after 2014 /2015 comparable to mid 1980’s 1940’s and 1920’s averages or are they not ? Indeed they are. So the ” Very Large Variability ‘ bracket may be meaningless over a 120 year timescale for the purposes of your arguments as there is no ‘anthropogenic warming signal . Please tell us how you manage to rationalize the WA wheat belts saturated soils and record 2021 grain harvest with this mendacious propaganda : ” the receding of the westerlies is already having a major drought effect on the wheat farms of SW WA “
Sometimes it seems that statistics was developed for “… but liars can figure.” Comparing winter rainfall of the period 2000-2011 to the period 1910 to 1999 is a case in point. Averages for the longer (and less accurately measured) period hide significant variations. This is a CliSciFi trick that is often used by the professional liars in government and academia.
Also note that the 45+ year summer rainfall period shown as “Very large variability” has no trend. Effects of the “magic molecule” would, presumably, would show a trend.
Nick provides no support for the causes of his asserted changes. Even if his assertions are valid, we have no way to sort natural causes from CO2.
I have a problem, perhaps you can explain. The map labeled “Western Australian Wheatbelt May – October Rainfall Zones” is showing a 12 year period, 2000-201, compared to a 90 year period, 1910-1999. If you break down the 90 year period into every 12 year period, (1910-1921, 1911-1922, 1912-1923 and so on), will you find any of those 12 year periods comparable to the 12 year period of 2000-2011?
The 1910 -1999 vis a vis 2000 – 2011 SW WA Winter rainfall total comparison is essentially meaningless Tom . Nick Stokes is a serial bulls****r .The real culprit is not the carbon dioxide molecule and global warming but the acceleration of native vegetation clearance from 1950 – 1980 that interfered with the transpiration feedback cycle contributing to declining winter rainfall from the 1970’s onwards in the most heavily cleared forested zones . The geographical map of interest is the one enclosed in Joanne Nova’s article accompanied by the winter rainfall indexes respective to the four zones. The map provided by Nick Stokes omitted a large eastward portion of zone 1 that shows barely any reduction of winter rainfall…………………………. Andrich & Imberger 2012 : ” It is widely recognized that southwest Western Australia has experienced approximately a 30% decline in rainfall in areas inland from the coastal margin over the last forty years or more. It is generally thought that this decline was due to changes induced by global warming but recently evidence has emerged suggesting that a substantial part of the decline may be attributed to changes in land use .These changes involved extensive logging close to the coast and the clearing of native vegetation for wheat planting on the higher ground .We present a methodology that compares coastal and inland rainfall to show that 50 -80% of the observed decline in rainfall is the result of land clearing …………the methodology is relevant to other regions where land use change may have caused rainfall reductions in the past ” https://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/land-clearing-responsible-for-most-of-rainfall-decline-in-south-west-western-australia/………………..Yes their methodology is relevant – with regard to an ancient folly : ” Forest Razing by Ancient Maya Worsened Droughts , Says Study ” https://earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3001
Thank You for that info.
No worries Tom …. Glad to oblige
50% of the time 😉
” You just have to get your head around the fact Australia is a big place where different things happen and at different times ” .Siberia is big place . So is Africa .That looks to me like a classic ‘unfalsifiable hypothesis Nick Stokes – paragon of intellectual honesty that you are .Weather patterns have never remained static and unchangeable in Australia .. Mark Howdens fallacy is each way doublethink .[.Perhaps he’s taking tips from the Australian Psychological Society ] He could always have a sook and go on strike The wheat farms of South West WA have actually enjoyed bumper harvests in recent years after Tim Flannery predicted the region would be a wasteland Are Australians enduring more frequent bushfires from the 1974-75 record fire season peak and how might atmospheric carbon dioxide ignite and exacerbate these fires which happen to be declining across other regions of the world ? ” So yes you get more flooding ” There is no evidence flooding is worsening despite increases in precipitation This is the IPCC’s ‘low confidence’ position ,,Anymore voodoo science Nick ?
” The receding of the westerlies is already having a major drought effect on the wheat farms of SW WA ………This is not just a climate theory ” ….. . No it is not just a climate theory ……….It is a lie From the online journal ‘Farming Ahead : ” WA records exceptional 24 million tonne grain crop “…………… ” WA produced more than 38 per cent of Australia’s grain crop of 62 million tonnes ……………” Severe waterlogging impacted large areas in the south and western rim of the grain belt ” However , in Nick Stokes fevered ‘unfalsifiable hypothesis’ imagination ” Australia is a big place where different things happen at different times …..’you can get both at the same time ” !……….Presumably parching drought saturation of the WA wheat belt and record grain harvests can be reconciled as true at one and same time in Nicks mind………..Catastrophic climate change works in mysterious ways https://farmingahead.com.au/agronomy/news/1426344/wa-records-exceptional-24-million-tonne-grain-crop
I think its called cognitive dissonance. Believing two opposites at the same time!
go here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/record-wheat-harvest-in-australia-now-seen-over-5-higher
“Australia’s record wheat production this year is now estimated to be even larger than expected after mostly favorable weather, helping to ease global shortages caused by drought and the war in Ukraine.”
It’s the same for the whole globe. The CAGW advocates keep saying food shortages will be a result of the Earth turning into a cinder. Yet we keep seeing record harvests globally year after year.
Go here for global wheat harvests: https://www.statista.com/statistics/267268/production-of-wheat-worldwide-since-1990/
We just keep reading predictions like Stokes that we face immediate starvation because of “climate change” yet the actual truth never seems to bear this out. But religious dogma always seems to win out with the CAGW advodates.
That’s it Tim
“I think its called cognitive dissonance. Believing two opposites at the same time!”
I believe George Orwell called this “Doublethink”. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this as a “Thought marked by the acceptance of gross contradictions and falsehoods, especially when used as a technique of self-indoctrination.“
” So yes , you get …….more bushfires as the dry heat persists into Dec/Jan”…………..Australia’s fire vulnerability season varies from region to region , Australia is not afflicted by more frequent bushfires and you have not provided any evidence for your assertion. ……………….Acquaint yourself with. Bjorn Lomborg’s research article : ‘ Fighting Australia’s fire myths ‘ : I suspect you already have . To quote : ” Satellites show that from 1997 to 2018 the [ Australian landmass] burnt area declined by one third .Australia’s current fire season has seen less area burned than in previous years ………Australia’s burnt area declined by more than a third from 1900 to 2000 and has declined across the satellite period ” ……There is one error in Lomborg’s graph and that pertains to the omission of the record 1974-75 fire season burned area [ 117 million ha] that only accentuates the downward trend and discredits your argument as the 74-75 fires followed abnormally voluminous rains in a decade of cool temperatures https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/bjorn-lomborg-fighting-australias-fire-myths/
Nobody has yet answered this question – maybe you can help me?
Can you name 5 possible climate scenarios that would FALSIFY his predictions?
Or 3.
Or just one would be fine, though the more the merrier.
You seem to have a confident understanding of Climate Theory, so doubtless you are familiar with all of the unexpected climate states that, IF they occurred, would not be supported by current understandings… So far, one wise fellow stated “50 years of cooling would NOT falsify the current understandings, but 60 years MIGHT foster some doubt…” Talk about “too big to fail,” right? A disturbing assessment.
Current Climatology CANNOT be “unfalsifiable,” right? Because that would not be science, that would be pure chicanery…
“Can you name 5 possible climate scenarios that would FALSIFY his predictions?”
You can hope to falsify predictions if you first try to understand what they are. But if you take the lazy approach of this post and its like, and just say Ha Ha, they are predicting drought and rain, then you have no chance.
You didn’t name any obfuscation Nick.
The lazy approach is a persistent aversion to criticisms of your misleading assertions Nick Stokes ..
I agree with your last assertion. But let me add something, starting to declare that I am not a Popperian.
First, a THEORY must be formalized; “climate change” is not a theory: a mere repetition that “climat change is the cause of this or that” is not a formalization — it is just an opinion, not even a hypothesis.
Then, a theory MUST formulate some conditions that can FALSIFY it. The falsification of the climate change verbiage is IMPOSSIBLE because it is, as you say, pure chicanery, and NOT, NEVER HAS BEEN, a scientific theory.
Then, with all due respect, I think that you should have started to ask for the formalization of the theory connecting such disparate things as westerlies, SE trade winds, monsoons, more frequent or “unprecedented” droughts and more frequent or “unprecedented” floods. (NB: asking also for the definitions of “more frequent” and “unprecedented”).
Yes it s a big place Nick, with dozens of climates each doing their own thing (changing) all the time.
So that’s what makes constructing averages of various characteristics across the Australian continent, let alone the globe, a complete nonsense.
And then there’s the facts….WA 2021/22 crop yield 52% higher than the 10 year average (source: https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-outlook/australian-crop-report/western-australia)
Making the qualitative or subjective claim that a location can have both more floods and more droughts is quite deceitful.
If you, a good statistician wants to make such a claim, you can provide a scientific hypotheses how it is possible and then back it up with statistics.
Oh Nick will do that he has trash like that all over his website. There is also the slight issue that much of the pattern was happening long before CO2 levels took off.
And then there’s the facts….WA 2021/22 crop yield 52% higher than the 10 year average (Source: ABARES)
Nick, you are right about from where the rain comes in Australia but, you should have expanded on the underlying source of that rain.
1. Westerlies in winter (Roaring Forties) for SW WA to Vic/Tas – These come from the Southern Ocean, the one between Australia and Antarctica, and they don’t just come in winter. This year they have been pushed south by the dominance of the other 2 oceans.
2. SE Trade Winds for East Coast – These come from the Pacific Ocean and depend on which cycle we are experiencing. El Nino will bring rain, which we are seeing aplenty this year. La Nina will bring drought, which we have experienced in the recent past and many times before that.
3. Monsoons for the North in summer/autumn. – These come from the Indian Ocean and have been particularly strong this year. It is the unusual strength of the Indian Ocean influence that has changed the patterns for the other 2 oceans. It’s influence can be seen in the big bands of clouds streaming from the north-west of the continent to the south-east.
In my opinion, it is a major mistake to assume these changes are permanent. Australia has been under the influence of these 3 oceans since long before humans arrived here. The weather patterns here change regularly and are difficult to predict. Australian meteorologists “3 oceans” problem is equivalent to physicists “3 bodies” problem – almost impossible to solve.
“ El Nino will bring rain, which we are seeing aplenty this year. La Nina will bring drought”
Do you have gender confusion there?
Yes, I got the 2 backwards. Sorry, I was in a rush to finish and didn’t bother to proof-read it.
It should read “La Nina will bring rain… El Nino will bring drought…”.
Nick Stokes honed in on that error and ignored the remainder of your arguments …He tends not to respond to his debunked deceptions and lies as well
For all you know, Nina might want to identify as any one of the 57 varieties of gender which are now available to us to choose between. All you are doing is imposing your gender assessment on poor little Nina without waiting for it to make up its own mind. Welcome to the loony world of critical gender theory.
No, no, no! Being that they are words from South America, they BOTH should be called “Ninx”!
Yes I understand more floods mean greater fuel load which unmanaged will lead to more intensive fires. 😉
The fires were low this year will take a few years for the fuel to rebuilding up again 🙂
Now don’t go on here makin sense.
Nick – So you could say Australia is a “sunburnt country… a land of droughts and flooding rains.” So what’s changed since Dorothea McKellar wrote that in 1904?
You just have to get your head out of your arse.
Your being disingenuous Nick. It is now a well known fact we get droughts from the El Nino and floods like we are experiencing now from the La Nina cycles. As yet no one can predict when they will occur. To say the man made climate change can over ride these cycles and alter the climate is just nonsense.
Nick writes. “There are three things that bring rain to parts of our dry continent”
Governed by three things interacting.
1. ENSO
2. IOD
3. SAM
And it’s their interaction that causes specific weather patterns. You’re fooling yourself if you think AGW has changed the interactions to be “worse”.
Also more flooding happens when there is more overall rain. They’re not all flooding events. It’s not cut and dry as to whether the farmers will take most years of good crops with occasional floods over most years of drought.
I swear every time I hear this bloke talk it’s like listening to an climate automaton.
Blah,…. “:{#$%@ Blah,…. *&%>#@ Blah.
He should have a look at this nice piece from CDN
”This bloke” being Mark Howden of course….
Don’t upset him Mike he may go on strike
Yes they are covering all the bases so that they can claim to be correct when one of their “predictions” is correct.
This reminds me of the confidence con from years back involving a “psychic” giving predictions of sports games. If people only listen to the correct “predictions” the money keeps rolling in.
Horace Batchelor, Infra-Draw, K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M
Any Brit born before 1970 will be familiar.
This is called a “Magician’s Force”. By relying on the general warming trend since the Little Ice Age to tip the scales toward warming, the dire predictions of warming are more likely, and appear to make the claims correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcing_(magic)
The World is a big place, where different things happen, at different times, but whenever anything is seen to go wrong, ‘Climate Scientists’ will be at hand to explain how, hot or cold, wet or dry, it was always caused by CO2
Seriously, this is the standard of scientific thinking at the top of the Australian university system? If so then I’m sorry to say but the great scientific age is over and we might as well let the Russians and Chinese have it all now!
I agree with professor know nothing that there will be catastrophic bush fires within a decade, but it will have zero to do with trace levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. It goes like this, 3-4 seasons of wet weather with see an increase in the amount of vegetation in the eastern states of Australia. Governments will continue to mismanage the National Parks and forests so that at the end of the next dry cycle a spark, natural, accidental or deliberate, will set the whole tinder box off again.
I don’t need to be paid 100’s of thousands of tax payer dollars to predict that, I do it for nothing. Of cause I’m not a neo-Marxist in a position of influence looking to destroy the capitalist industrial system and replace it with something from the aforementioned Russia or China. When they take over poor useful idiots like professor know nothing will find their reward will be an ounce of lead in the head and a road side ditch for a grave.
” It goes like this, 3-4 seasons of wet weather with see an increase in the amount of vegetation in the eastern states of Australia. Governments will continue to mismanage the National Parks and forests so that at the end of the next dry cycle a spark, natural, accidental or deliberate, will set the whole tinder box off again.”
And the Australian flora has adapted to exactly this cycle. After fire, the trees and shrubs that live sprout from epicormic buds all up and down their stems, or sprout from a lignotuber at the base. The ones that die release a prodigious amount of seed which can remain dormant for many years on the tree or on the ground until fire comes again. Spores and seeds blow in from unburnt areas and germinate when it rains again. Many times the alarmists said things like ”this fire is different, even the soil was burned, nothing remains”, etc.
Black Saturday and 10 years later….
Yep – rinse & repeat decade after decade after decade after decade . . .
I heard today of a vice chancellor of a big old Aussie Uni, who said his doctorate was in Political Science.
When I did my uni science, there was no such category as Political Science. Science required study of matters that had improved mankind, such as Physics, Chemistry, Geology, maybe Botany.
It remains a fraudulent descriptor. There is no proper Science in politics. Wishful thinking and titular misappropriation does not change that reality. Geoff S
Wikipedia: “The advent of political science as a university discipline was marked by the creation of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the late 19th century.”
Notice that any higher level education courses with “science” in the name….aren’t really scientific.
All the PolySci graduates over all the decades still can’t stop one aggressor from shooting up its neighbor. H.L. Mencken summed up politics the best: You know, hobgoblins & etc.
“ Russians and Chinese have it all now!”
Is it possible that western societies are morphing into one globalist regime along with a few other states 🤔
It ( Climate Alarmism), would be funny if it wasn’t having such devastating effects on the lives of the poorest in society.
Before Climate Alarm was a thing, the poorest in society had opportunities to work their way up and out of poverty, using cheap energy to assist them. Mothers could look forward to the day when a mechanical aid with the washing became affordable. The cooking on an open dung of wood stove, could be replaced by a clean gas, or electric stove powered by fossil fuel. The energy hewn from the Earth, that provided work and income for their husbands/fathers of their children was seen as the positive it is.
That was before the late 1980s when a new anxiety was introduced to the world, with devastating long term negative consequences. The strangest priority it advanced, was the reduction of wealth in the developed western world. Restrictions on entrepreneurial spirit was introduced at every turn. The most mundane activity now requires a permit to do it. Planning permission is required to do anything, drilling a well, transporting energy via pipe line, even simply cutting down a tree of more than 4 inches dia. if you live in the UK., all such permissions of course controlled by publicly funded workers, who have assumed authority over their paymasters?
Australia is a great example of public sector destroying private wealth development, simply because they can. The situation in China and one or two other parts of the non Western world are different. China is advancing the wealth creation sector, it is busy assuming all the jobs the West has been told to abandon by their ‘woke masters’.
The result is, we will consume more coal world wide than would have been the case. Clean nuclear will be advanced in China rather than in the West, and gas, the most plentiful clean burn fuel available to power industry, is kept in the ground by bureaucracy while people are actually going back to wood for fuel to heat their homes in the West.
Our current Russian headline grabber, Vlad the Invader, may bizarrely prove the old saying, every cloud has a silver lining. The West must now realise, wind mills and solar panels are no match for gas and oil, when the chips are down. Bad people do, do bad things to weak opponents.
Freedom does not come cheap, we have to continually fight to preserve it. Without reliable continuously available energy, we can not maintain or secure our freedom.
Enjoy the ‘sunshine rain’ predicted for Australia, while you can…..
I agree 100 per cent.
Why do our politicians ignore the so called undeveloped countries such as both India & China.
What is the point of attempting to reduce our small increase in the dreaded “” Emissions”” when those two countries do not care.
It’s all Virtue Singling by our politicians. Vote for me because I am Green.
As for the recent floods, all normal, it’s a part of “” The Big Wet”, the Monsoon.
Allowing houses to be built on Flood Plains”” is of course crazy, unless massive engening such as Dams & drainage are also built.
Michael VK5ELL
China went from abject poverty to 2nd largest economy via fossil fuels. There is no other way.
and because of their new fossil fueled wealth- they can afford to build the 3 Gorges Dam which will prevent massive floods that have devastated the country for millennia- and it’ll produce green energy
“The West must now realize, wind mills and solar panels are no match for gas and oil..”
If Ukraine was currently at net zero- it would take no time to cripple the nation. Just straffing wind and solar “farms” would be a simple thing. Much more difficult than stopping a well designed, secure power plant.
“The cooking on an open dung of wood stove, could be replaced by a clean gas, or electric stove powered by fossil fuel”
I still can’t get over the scene in one tv-docu series (wish I could remember the name) where the host, visiting an African village, was admiring their environmental consciousness by cooking with dung.
Also –
Australia will become Sunnier but with More Clouds.
Australia will become Hotter but with More Cold.
Australia will become Windier but with More Calms.
Australia will become Muggier but with More Sere.
Australia will become Dustier but with More Clarity.
And so on…
““There is no reason to feel comfortable about how fire is evolving at the moment,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vice-chair said on Wednesday, during a look back at the disasters climate change fuelled last year.”
Yet another evidence-free assertion.
He directly contradicts the studies referenced in the report. It is sad that these leeches are allowed to continue with blatant lies. I assume that future historians will marvel at our age’s ideological faculty in ignoring facts and not confronting obvious liars.
love it incredible keep it up https://bisegrw.result.pk/
Nah, tests are so racist.
It is already drier with more rain, isn’t it?
Drought alternates with weather systems which dump a year’s rain in a couple of days, then no more rain for most of the year till the next extreme rainfall
500,000 Australians are currently evacuated or under warning to evacuate their homes. These are off the scale floods, the fourth such event worldwide in a year and yet here is this website pretending this is just ‘normal’.
“The devastating floods of Brisbane in 1893”
“A few days ago the floods in Brisbane peaked at 3.85m. Apparently this was due to a surplus of coal fired power or a lack of wind turbines, or something like that. But this photo below, was taken in Brisbane 129 years ago, when there were almost no coal turbines anywhere in the world, and CO2 levels were ideal, yet floods reached 8.3m.”
More at
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/03/the-devastating-floods-of-brisbane-in-1893/
Australia has 2 seasons…
The Wet
AND
The Dry
Check back even just as far back as the first British Colony of New South Wales, Sydney Town, Port Jackson Harbour, First Fleet arrived 26 January 1788.
Many big floods since that time, and long droughts in between floods, and roughly in twenty year cycles for example;
The coal loader Port of Newcastle is at the ocean end of the Hunter River, not far inland is the City of Maitland where the port was first located, during the early 1950s the flooding was so high that all of the Main Street buildings were flooded up to and over the awnings of the bottom level. In following years a substantial levy bank was constructed to protect Maitland from future floods. It was flooded so extensively that a movie was made about the event using actual news film imaging.
You don’t seem to understand what a drought is, griff.
Then again, you infamously claimed eating 3 meals a day amounted to 20 meals per week.
Griff,
The current average planetary temperature is 0C above the 20 year average. The global cooling was caused by an increase in cloud cover.
It is colder this year not warmer. You are missing the physical issue of explaining why there is suddenly ‘atmospheric rivers’ which is just a silly name for large banks of clouds over the ocean, that have moisture in them. British Columbia has had roughly 10 atmospheric river events this year and has had days of fog and weeks of cloudy days and massive snowfall in the coastal mountains. This is exactly what happened in British Columbia in the 1970s. There have been roughly a half dozen atmospheric river events in California. The sudden appearance of banks of clouds with moisture is a change in the sun.
The sun is moving to a Maunder minimum. The sunspots are shrinking in size and magnetic field strength. Solar cycle 25 is a failing cycle. The sun is at age when its rotation suddenly slows down and it will no longer produce a magnetic cycle. During the transition period the sun cyclically stops producing sunspots for 70 to 100 years. We just experienced a Dansgaard-Oeschger warming event. This past warming events were caused by the solar changes not CO2 changes. The D-O warming events occur in both the glacial periods and the interglacial period. Climate ‘scientist’ have no explanation for past D-O warming events and have hidden the past cyclic warming events from the public.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: As this graph indicates the Greenland Ice data shows that have been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
The cyclic warming with the same periodicity as the warming in the Northern hemisphere is found in the Southern Hemisphere.
Does the Current Global Warming Signal Reflect a Recurrent Natural Cycle.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Griff, I don’t think you understand that when we are in drought, it doesn’t rain. When it rains we don’ have drought. And there were not 500,000 Australians having to evacuate their houses hundreds of years ago when these events were already happening, long before the advent of alarmism.
” It is already drier with more rain , isn’t it ” ? ………………. If you are so convinced of your own argument why did you tentatively pose the question ? Because you furtively know you are deceiving yourself The 1974 and 1893 floods were worse and the past two IPCC climate extremes reports classify global flood trends as tantamount to normal Griff.. The recent Queensland floods are not ” off the scale ” Comparable to the 2010 /11 oscillation , this is a wet La Nina year following harsh drought conditions .The same weather pattern that has existed here for millennia
Eric closed with “…climate science finally got a prediction right for once, with their prediction that when Australia is dry it is dry, except when it is wet.”
Next climate scientists in Australia will be predicting that it will be daytime, except when it’s nighttime.
Regards,
Bob
You might say, it’s a damp kind of dry. 😉
” Claytons Climatology ” .Bob ……In Australia ‘Clayton’s was a non alcoholic beverage brand that tasted like spirits and became a popular generic for something bogus
Whatever keeps the government and NGO grants rolling, Bob.
I’ve adapted. I have RC aircon and my home doesn’t need to be on stilts as it’s not in a flood zone and it’s not among the gum trees. Planning and Building Regs take care of the old Fire of London thing as it does with the structural integrity of my joint and my neighbours. Do keep up perfessor as it’s the same deal with the ANU buildings.
Howden is offering a wonderful koan. What is the sound of the rain in the middle of a drought? Slap yourself several times- ponder it- and you’ll be enlightened.
” Grasshopper ” Howden’s climate koan
Australia is a desert.
The weather there can and do what it likes, when it likes and to whatever extreme it likes.
This being a natural characteristic of things called deserts
Primarily because the landscape has no thermal inertia = no trapped heat, stored energy, cooling mechanism or method of reducing its rate of heating during daytimes and summers
What we really need to know is:
What was the weather like 100,000 years ago – when Australia was still a tropical rainforest and before hordes of sweet innocent little humans moved in and burned it all down to the ground.
Thereafter allowing all the fertility, health and vitality of Australia to blow away in the wind and wash away down the rivers in the resultant flash flood events.
Once you have had One Dust Storm or significant flood, that is it. Curtains. Nothing grows again until either a volcano or an Ice Age erases the memory
Any geologists in the house – what does the Australian offshore sediment record tell us?
Not least does it agree with the onshore record – that Aus. was a vibrant fertile place because of all the coal and gas buried under it?
Not dissimilar to where I am now, North Nottinghamshire/South Yorkshire and, really oddly, the Ukraine
Quote from the wiki:”Ukraine holds 37,892 million tons (MMst) of proven coal reserves as of 2016, ranking 7th in the world and accounting for about 3% of the world’s total coal reserves of 1,139,471 million tons (MMst). Ukraine has proven reserves equivalent to 638.4 times its annual consumption.
Not only that, Ukraine is an amazing place for the cultivation of arable crops, along with ‘vast swathes‘ (ht Mark Howden for that- we all know exactly what you mean) of Eastern Europe where annual wheat yields of 5+ tonnes are commonplace – right up there with Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire here in England.
Australia and the Great Plains right now = yields of 1 tonne per acre, and in Australia only for the 2 years out 5 when anything actually grows. Flog a dead horse why don’t you.
How did either Mankowitch, sunspots or CO2 cause those things?
Australia has an abundance of wet season rainfall in Northern Australia and most runs out to sea. The CSIRO has identified land about the area of Western Europe that could become irrigation farmland, part is already in the WA Kununurra District where the Ord River and dam is located. The plan put forward by the Liberal-National Coalition and first mentioned around 2012/13 publicly includes dams on each of the Northern Rivers to the East of WA, including hydro electricity and pipelines to transfer water to the South.
The pipeline was first proposed and named the Bradfield Scheme many decades ago.
The Abbott Coalition Federal Government formed in September 2013 assisted the then Newman LNP Queensland State Government to get the UN to agree to overturn what was called “Wild Rivers” legislation that blocked development of the Northern Rivers, but as far as I know nothing more has been done to date.
In New South Wales there is a plan to create water storage from no longer mined open cut coal mine pits, and there is cooperation with Israel to develop dry condition irrigation areas.
The Australian Aborigines say that inland waterways flow upside down, meaning dig down and find water when the water course is dry, which is more often than not in the land of droughts and flooding rains.
not sure it was the howden fool or another of our many here in Aus but some jerk was on abc radio this arvo telling us that Aus was already hotter than anyplace else already at the 1.5 panic levels..truly amazing that WE and we only? managed that isnt it?
or not
That’s the same old garbage peddled around the world at the end of 2020
Just google any country name and “warming twice as fast” and you’ll get one of these stories
Canada is warming twice as fasterest as OZ because our politicians are dumber
You’ll try to argue but no one out-dumbs Justin Trudeau
It’s not possible
I came across another nugget, from Egypt, where a Coptic monastery near the Red Sea Mountains suffered extreme damage due to heavy rainfall on Feb. 19, 2022. They evidently did not get the memo that they were facing a climate disaster.
Regarding very heavy rainfall, the Sphinx in Egypt has been dated based on erosion by water on its upper surfaces and estimated to be 10-15,000 years old, much older than the oldest Pyramid.
Weather conditions and gradually changing climate zones, Earth cycles, naturally.
Australian climate science: Nothing but the best.
That money can buy.
Sounds a little like “Never let a crisis go to waste”, yet another political belief intruding on “the settled science”.
“Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 could be the new normal “
“Catastrophic flooding on the scale of the disaster hitting Queensland and New South Wales is becoming more likely“
… extreme weather events are not climate, neither do they suggest possible future climate scenarios.
You can of course create a model that will give you the answer that you’re looking for.
How much further will the “experts” go to discredit themselves? They will become an endangered species if they keep it up. I, for one, certainly hope so.
They just can’t seem to learn that weather is weather, irregardless of what label is placed upon it. Sheesh.
Yet they are still able to stagger forward to the next government or NGO grant. BTW, journalism has taken a page from the CliSciFi grifters and now accepts donations (bribes) from alarmist organizations to publish scary propaganda. They are very upfront about it; as if they are assuming people are stupid. How long it will last I don’t know.
Here’s another example, re: US Great lakes
These stories were 1 week apart!
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/01/low-ice-coverage/
https://www.boreal.org/2022/01/25/388212/ice-on-great-lakes-is-expanding-expected-to-peak-in-typical-range
And take a look for yourself at what the coverage actually was
It rained so hard the day I left,
The weather, it was dry.
The sun so hot I froze to death
Susanna don’t you cry.
Nice pickup! I think the first lyric is “it rained so hard the day I left,”
With comments like “….adaptation can take the edge off them”.” the good scientist might just lose his present sinecure. A lashing with a wet noodle by Michael Mann, at least.
Article: with many effects expected to be more severe than predicted.
What good are the predictions when the expected effects are more severe than predicted.
Lawyers
Doctors
Climate scientists
Serial killers
Much more from these folks and they overtake serial killers
“It’s more likely you’re going to see this in the future with climate change because of the warmer atmosphere, and the ability to hold more moisture in the warmer atmosphere…”
Perhaps Dr. Howden should look however briefly at actual atmospheric water vapor data. The data show that it has been decreasing at every altitude since 1983, when measurements began. Do you think he might change is view if he did?
Inspired by Willis Eschenbach’s First Law of Climate, I have a new corollary,
“With Climate Change, anything can happen, but it usually doesn’t.”
“But don’t let that stop you from worrying about it anyway”
A poem by John O’Brien published in 1921 says it all about Australian weather.
“Said Hanrahan.”
Droughts, floods, bushfires – “we’ll all be rooned before the year is out”.
The only thing I have to say about Prof. Howden is that he is drunk with power and needs to go on the wagon. Twelve step program suggested.
Clearly everything changed in 3 weeks
According to 4 decades of settled science