Floods are sweeping across NSW and 18,000 people have been evacuated, and rain is forecast to keep coming for til Wednesday. Flooding is described as the worst in 60 years. But that’s the point. There have always been floods right after droughts and fires — and we knew that 150 years ago.
The scandal is that in 1865, scientists had a better grip on what caused them. Today “top” climate scientists think your car causes the weather.
Top science in 2021: Solar panels and windmills could have stopped the flooding:
The multiple natural disasters Australia has experienced over the past 18 months — such as the floods currently ravaging NSW — should be blamed on climate change, say experts from the Climate Council.
“The intense rainfall and floods that have devastated NSW communities are taking place in an atmosphere made warmer and wetter by climate change, which is driven by the burning of coal, oil, and gas,” Climate Council spokesperson Will Steffen said in a statement on Monday.
“For many communities dealing with floods right now, this is the latest in a line of climate change-exacerbated extreme weather events they have faced, including drought, the Black Summer bushfires, and scorching heatwaves,” he added.
The more money we put into government funded science the more it looks like witchcraft
Does CO2 cause floods? It takes 3 minutes in the historic Trove archives to test this theory. In a surprise to Supermodels everywhere, getting CO2 back to 310ppm (even if it were possible) would return Australia to 1950, so we already know how this works out.
There were a spate of floods in Eastern Australia in the 1950’s and 1960s when La Nina’s were more common and the world was cooling. For example, in 1949 8 people were killed and 20,000 were left homeless in New South Wales by flooding. The Adelaide Chronicle June 23, 1949
…
In Maitland in 1955, 25 people died, 2,000 homes were inundated and 58 homes washed away. This was only three years after the previous floods when The Hume Highway at Camden was under 30 feet of water.
NEWSFLASH: There were floods in New South Wales in 1857 even before coal fired power was invented
A quarter century before the first coal power plant was built anywhere in the world, devastating floods washed over New South Wales. There were three separate floods in 1857, “each worse than the one before”. The floods and storms were described as afflicting an area from far north of Taree down to Goulburn.
Hunter River Floods, 1857
“Five years of firewood” washed up:
What amount of property was destroyed by the flood it is impossible to ascertain. The piles of wood, which of themselves would supply the inhabitants of both East and West Maitland with firewood for the next five years, have buried in, without doubt, some hundreds of pounds’ worth of property. Many families are left entirely destitute of food and raiment. It is impossible to give an accurate description of this desolate scene.
On the Hawkesbury “Windsor was almost an island, there was no escape by dry land.” In Mudgee, the “consequences were most disastrous “. .. the rain fell in torrents… ” “Other floods occurred at Penrith, Camden, Gouldburn and Cassilis.”
Part a Floods, NSW, September 10th, 1857, Manning River, Trove, NSW. Sydney Morning Herald| Click to enlarge.
Part b. Floods, NSW, September 10th, 1857, Manning River, Trove, NSW. Sydney Morning Herald| Click to enlarge.
In 2021, among other things, cows are even being rescued from the surf on beaches, which probably makes them a lot luckier than the ones that got washed downriver in 1857.
Thoughts and best wishes for everyone caught in this natural disaster.
The Maitland flood of about 1955 was famous for the photograph of the surf boat being used in the main street.
Since the earlier floods described above some dams have been built and flood mitigation work carried out. Levies were built and water diverted away from built up areas but the main issue remains: Maitland was built on the flood plain when it should have been away in the higher ground at East Maitland.
KK
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Have just returned from a quick visit to Wollombi Tavern and the river has risen about 6 metres from its level of the past 3 years or so.
Photos on the wall show that the flood of 2007 was at least 3 metres high than now.
On the basis of comparing the two floods, 2021’and 2007 , it could be postulated by “scientists” that higher CO2 levels helps to reduce flooding.
🙂
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Related factoid: I’m a member of the broad Jurd Family – makers of Dr Jurd’s Jungle Juice, and First Fleeters. I still have a lot of relatives up that way – even some without two heads!
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I met a bloke a few weeks ago who obtained a small squeezebox-piano accordion type instrument from one of the “family”.
Thankfully the road to Sydney is blocked at Laguna so I won’t have to worry about you being there for a while.
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Chippin’ sandstone.
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It used to be a big business out that way, but not so much lately.
All the convicts are out roaming the streets.
🙂
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What a pity – I’m good fun to have a beer with.
Actually – my convict ancestors did quite okay, with quite a a bit of farmland around St Albans. Many of them are buried in the old cemetery outside town.
Photo: https://goo.gl/maps/kvb8Eayip6BJUzrj7
And because they are First Fleet, the NSW Heritage Commission looks after their gravestones – all clean and everything. Which is nice.
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If you go here
https://m.facebook.com/newcastlefolk/videos/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0
and go down about 6 places , a month ago, to the one with 146 views beside it, you might find the family concertina at about 49 minutes in. They play, when Irish eyes are smiling.
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I have no Irish background … mostly English, but a bit of Scottish for ginger! Came from Colsterworth in Lincolnshire – Isaac Newton’s town.
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And, I’ve been along that road on the way to Saint Albans, it’s patrolled by a government officer on horseback.
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Indeed – have to keep the criminal scum in line! 🙂
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A La Nina occurs about 6-8 months after a solar minimum. This is predictable with 99.999% accuracy. Did anyone build a new reservoir or divert rainfall to ground water?
About 5.5 years from now there will be an El Nino. Drought. Followed by bush fires.
Will anyone start preparing for those bush fires now?
While we continue to use CO2 as the excuse for theft and fraud of public funds nothing sensible will happen.
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Which is exactly why nothing sensible has happened or is happening. The `monkeys’ flap their lips without paying any attention to the cycles.
Yes: weather is cyclic, and, therefore, so is climate variation.
Because their forecasting is not science based, they will continue to get it wrong. With the continuing solar destruction of our planetary magnetic field, it’s going to become more `regular.’ According to my favourite prediction/forecast, from 2015:
we’re 5 years into that period. The cooling has begun. It will proceed.
The present magnetic field is a mess: https://ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/data/WMM2020/WMM2020_F_SV_BoZ_MILL.pdf
Those who aren’t aware of it will continue to do what has been done: assign blame to CO2 rather than actually use real science …
How can mankind possibly be responsible for this?
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#1.2.1.
My sense is, the AGW movement is setting the world up for a monstrous crash sometime in the future. Their argument is based on very short term history where consideration of past eons, and cycling eons to come, is ignored; punished even as ‘scepticism’. Being between Ice Ages could be the counter-argument based on cycles, but that is history over thousands of years.
It was only in the ’70’s scientists warned of then current global cooling, having the world of 4Billion people facing mass starvation because of the inability to produce enough food due to the cooling effect on plant growth (and lowering [CO2]atm. by reabsorption in cooling oceans?)
Today, there is failure to recognise that unsteadily rising global temperatures and [CO2] is creating a greening of the planet, abundance of plankton and huge increases in agricultural production. Food for everything. In these good times, with the common ‘people harvesters’ of the past pretty much overcome, people are breeding like kangaroos in clover. Almost 8billion!
People already dwell between extremes of heat and cold. The human is adaptable to climate extremes, so the hysteria created by the politically vexatious warmers is nonsensical, as are their arguments. The warmers have created tunnel vision for democratic leaders by using totally short termism argument. The leaders have abandoned discernment of the total picture of known climate history. Indeed, they have even forgotten – or never known – the history of that science warning of the 1970’s. Laissez-faire rules. No questions tolerated.
A sudden global cooling puts all bets off! In drought, kangaroos – and ‘sheep’ – lie dead in great numbers in paddocks and bush. Similarly for humans. The AGW philosophy, in killing off economies and energy supplies when things are at their best, is also killing off our ability to survive any mass disaster drought, war, pestilence or plague. All the world (Democracies especially) sees is an argument over short term temperature change and computer postulated disasters that never happen, as though the world travels a single, foreseeable path. Climate history, with all its limitations, shows that is nonsense.
So Sophocles, I know you may be right, but I hope you are wrong and that some sense of balance can get into the brains of those we choose to lead us before your prophecies come to fruition.
Unfortunately, I believe my armageddon and your vision may combine to become fact well before any new Ice Age hits the world suddenly.
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Geoff Croker.
Thanks for your comments I agree with you and the others who replied to your comment.
AGW mainly due to increases in CO2 is a false and malicious climate change fabrication supported and shouted daily is part of a scheme by the UN, politicians around the world, and one world fanatics all of whom seek money, power, and fame. The usual hangers on who
think they too will benefit and the ignorant sheeple who run to get on the bandwagon are also guilty of this massive fraud.
I don’t know how this horrible and malicious climate change deception will last or how decent and honorable scientists, engineers, and the informed and honest citizens will end the fraud. but, I do hope they can find a way soon to stop it.
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Maitland Flood Havoc 1955
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4loGVxRPUAA
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My family has lived and farmed around the Hunter River since about 1850, so there is 170 years of oral history passed down through the generations. I grew up on stories of the 1893, 1949 and 1955 floods, the latter two being recent history just before my birth. I also grew up with the never-forgotten sweet stench of rotting vegetation in my nostrils after the numerous floods of my childhood on the Paterson River (a Hunter tributary). The Hunter River has the biggest catchment of any NSW coastal river and includes some very high rainfall terrain in places.
Maitland CBD sits on the riverbank where the bullock wagon track once ran and a series of grog shanties sprang up to service that trade from the (then largest) river port of Morpeth to all places north and west right up as far as Toowoomba in QLD. Until the advent of the railways in the 1880s Maitland and Morpeth were THE pre-eminent NSW towns outside of Sydney. Newcastle had yet to blossom. The river has changed its course many times since settlement, but back then the paddle-steamers used to come right up behind the Maitland shops to unload into bond stores, so Maitland was on the river for good reason.
The Hunter’s history is nothing but floods and droughts. One of my grandfather’s earliest memories was of standing knee-deep in flood water as a 7 year old pulling beetroot to salvage what they could of their crop before it all went underwater and rotted. The locals took it in their stride. When the river was rising they would put their beds up on bricks and go to sleep, likewise with their other furniture. The 1955 flood was on a scale the locals had not seen.
In 1955 an entire street of houses below Maitland Hospital was washed away with their residents clinging onto the roofs. A line of big poplars stretched across the floodway downstream and some of the “lucky” residents were able to clamber into the trees as their houses were smashed to pieces on the bridge below. They were hanging out of the trees for a couple of days before they could be rescued as the current was too fierce and the only helicopter sent in for rescues had crashed during an earlier attempt elsewhere, killing all.
As KK stated, the Newcastle surf clubs sent surf boats up to help with rescues, although Maitland had a number of heavy flood-boats always on hand too. The Army sent in trucks and Ducks (DUKW). The trucks did good service; the ducks not so much. Some of the Duck drivers insisted on plowing up and down the main street, creating bow waves that punched in the shop front windows on undamaged buildings. Out of town their activities were much more useful.
After even the 1955 flood nothing remotely salvageable was thrown out. Mattresses were hosed off and stood out to dry for several weeks; clothes and bedding were used complete with mud stains; walls were scrubbed down until the fibres in the old plaster showed through; families pitched in to help each other. Several of my mum’s uncles and cousins had their homes and farms inundated.
My father was the northern NSW trouble-shooter for the Massey-Ferguson tractor company. He spent months after the flood stripping down tractors, where MF provided all labour for free via its dealers in the Hunter. The farmers were only charged for oil. Starter motors and generators were washed out then dried in the ovens of a local bakery after each batch of bread was done and the ovens cool enough. Flies were in absolute plague proportions. Life went on without any gnashing of teeth or blaming the CO2 weather gods.
After the excitement was over many houses were moved up onto higher ground, with real estate prices for ground on the hills rocketing within the year. The block where my parents had planned to build went from £100 to £300 while they were pre-occupied with the flood aftermath.
KK is not quite right about the siting of the town in that the larger part of East Maitland as it then was, also went under. Only the newer hillside suburbs were unaffected. The hills were covered in homes mainly after 1955. Development throughout the floodplain was banned, but now we have three generations of blow-ins with no local knowledge plus young graduate engineers who think that floods are a thing of the past and it is quite OK to develop the flood plain once more. They base their confidence on the levee system strengthened in the 70s. The town centre has nearly gone under twice since then, but they know best. In time there will be a disaster that makes 1955 look tame.
Incidentally, the early settlers were told by the Aborigines that they (the natives) had seen huge mega-floods in the past, one where kangaroos were trapped and washed off the hill on which Maitland hospital now sits — which would make the water probably 70 feet deep on the floodplain. By comparison 1955 was about 20 feet deep in the worst places. Geofluvial survey work has been done on Wollombi Brook (Cockfighter Creek) — a major Hunter tributary — which proves the occurrence of mega-floods in the past few hundred years prior to white settlement, so 70 feet of water may not be far fetched.
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Thanks for the history lesson, very informative. People in the Hunter did it tough in those days.
It’s a reality check for anyone living near rivers or in the bush. Nature is unforgiving as many people are finding out at the present. Having said that I feel great sympathy as we all do for those who have lost their homes and belongings in this awfull disaster . .
GeoffW
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Interesting, and I must confess that I only have a passing knowledge of the Maitland flood.
My grandmother’s grandparents had a shop in Morpeth long ago.
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A problem with a levee system is, that once the water gets in it has to be gotten out – the drain has been closed.
And seems that houses don’t appreciate being stewed in water for any length of time.
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https://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/159319/Big_Rock_The.pdf
15 July 1912 a storm came to Sydney and overnight tossed a 235 ton slab of sandstone up onto the headland just North of Bondi Beach. Sydney has wonderful weather … most of the time, not always.
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I keep on hearing that it is the “worst flooding since 1961”. I wonder what the CO2 level was in 1961 and does Will Stefan care anyway?
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Maitland Floods in 1864
and https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2019/02/26/maitland-floods-elijah-hart-1857/
and
1955 Hunter Valley floods
and – https://www.hunterweather.com/events.php?id=41
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Flood_Height_Historic_records_Hawkesbury_River.pdf
TABLE 2.1 – Major Historic Floods at Windsor (> 10m AH = 42 instances since March 1799)
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“A taste of the 1955 floods in NSW”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/03/a-taste-of-the-1955-floods-in-nsw.html
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Good evening Jo & Peter,
Jo, great story.
Peter, regarding Will Stefan, isn’t it funny that people who get rich off the back of fossil fuels (ex-bp. exec.), don’t realise that they are actually biting the hand that kept them so well fed for so many years!!
By the way, there’s a great expose of all the floods in NSW. in the 1860’s & 1870’s on michaelsmithnews.com
But of course, we all know how much carbon (di-oxide) pollution there was back then don’t we!! (L. O. L.)
Warmest regards,
Reformed Warmist of Logan.
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Re Stefan and similar travellers – it’s all about keeping the snout in the current trough, without double standards they would have none.
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PS. I have had time to break down the data, and a full listing will follow in a day or two.
Suffice to say, 87 flooding events in eight decades, and 90% of them in the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s.
If I hear worst fire/flood/drought Evah, ever again…I think I’ll scream continuously ’til I have no voice left.
(And of course, that’s probably what the left would love in any event.)
Reformed warmist of Logan.
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Something that has got up my nose around this flood is that reporters and the NSW Premier are using the term once in a ” 100 year flood”. Well it maybe but who has made the call on that? The term is totally misunderstood and misused by the uneducated. Unless that statement comes from a hydrologist or hydraulic engineer with all the historical data and analysis I will question those statements.
On another interesting topic has the ABC inadvertently let the cat-out-of-the-bag on coral bleaching? In this typically unscientific and gloomy article their very unscientific environment reporter Nick Kilvert covers a number of ecosystem supposedly under threat. In the section on Gulf of Carpentaria mangrove forests he discusses with Dr Norman Duke, a mangrove ecologist at James Cook University the mangrove kill and states that “Rising sea levels due to climate change are increasingly known to kill mangroves.” However researchers were shocked when they discovered the reason why the mangroves died.
“It wasn’t the first time a severe dieback had occurred in the Gulf — it had also happened in 1982, but had gone unnoticed. That’s important, because 1982 and 2015 were the two most severe El Nino events on record,” Dr Duke said. “Those events, to the surprise of everyone including me, caused a drop in sea level.”
A couple of paragraphs later we get
“In the Gulf of Carpentaria and other places across northern Australia, the [sea level] drop was half a metre in 2015. That half a metre prevailed for five to six months,” Dr Duke said.
Well, well that would have a major impact on coral bleaching
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Good stuff Alan.
A work colleague has a best mate who is an old oyster farmer. Tony tells me his mate laughs at people talking about sea level rise. His mate mentioned that they have to take great care with the placement of the racks, and the old fellow says nothing has changed for 50 years on his leases…
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Wouldn’t you love a mate who was an oyster farmer
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Nick Kilvert is a rabid green propagandist who’s opinions on climate dressed up as factual stories for the ABC are rarely truthful.
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Alan M
:
Take a look at this study by Willis Eschenback on WUWT – in summary, he had a look at the difference in global sea levels between El Nino-La Nina cycles, using the 1997/1998 period. During this time period, sea levels during El Nino episodes are lower in the Gulf, and during La Nina, they are higher, the difference between the two being around 0.3m. Fascinating stuff.
:
If a gifted citizen scholar can download and present this stuff, why can’t our esteemed Universities and Govt. backed scientific organisations do the same?
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” If a gifted citizen scholar can download and present this stuff, why can’t our esteemed Universities and Govt. backed scientific organisations do the same? ”
Because our esteemed Universities etc are NOT paid to do THAT.
They are paid to “spread-the-scare.”
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This from the USGS page “The 1-percent AEP flood has a 1-percent chance of occurring in any given year; however, during the span of a 30-year mortgage, a home in the 1-percent AEP (100-year) floodplain has a 26-percent chance of being flooded at least once during those 30 years!”
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1 in a 100 term is used in the hope they won’t be around for the next one! Or at least the one after! Look at all the Red Faces on Juliar Gillards Climate Commission! They predicted that dams would never fill again and caused the useless construction of several seawater conversion plants.
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“The more money we put into government funded science the more it looks like witchcraft”
Calling Tonyb.
We are now entering a period marked by hysteria.
Much like a medieval witch scare.
With men going into space and the rise of technology, we thought superstition was an artifact of the past.
(Oddly, human space exploration ground to a halt without fanfare.)
From what I can see our era has been one of the most climate stable since the MWP.
Now that I think of it, witch scares where more a thing of the LIA than the MWP.
Perhaps social hysterias are an indicator of an impending cold period?
We recovered from a Dark Age only to manufacture a new one without the help of a seismic event.
I hate to think what happens if nature really decides to reenter the game.
The Grammys feature WAP while Dr. Seuss is censored.
Maybe we must reconsider the existence of evil after all.
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Or Which Graft!
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Ops, forgotten it was a floodplain over the decades as the water receded and left all that fat juicy property to sell.
Move along everyone and don’t look to closely as we scam you for more taxes and damage control costs.
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Damn! If there’s one thing I can’t stand.. it’s a wasted cabbage.
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They call them 1 in 100 year rain events for a reason, they’ve happened before. No records broken on the Bellinger River, the 1950 flood stands. Mustnt have burned enough coal here.
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Sorry Phillip but but the so called 1 in 100 year rain or flood events are not quite what you may think they are!
Like this from the USGS page linked
“The 1-percent AEP flood has a 1-percent chance of occurring in any given year; however, during the span of a 30-year mortgage, a home in the 1-percent AEP (100-year) floodplain has a 26-percent chance of being flooded at least once during those 30 years!”
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yeah I understand what 1% actually is. Studied Hydrology once. Just using the common lingo.
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Meant to add I don’t agree with the gist of what you are saying but lets be clear
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Of course that wa I do agree, sorry
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Its not only carbon freaks who claim all bad weather due to their cause. Does anyone here watch Adapt 2030 or Oppenheimer Ranch Project on youtube ? Big GSM advocates who have been predicting wild weather for years, because of the GSM, certianly not CO2. These floods are right up their alley.
I personally think they’re doomsayers as well, but they do have interesting observations and I don’t dismiss them totally. Except the permaculture nonsense they talk about. Dave seems to think you can live off micro greens grown in your closet.
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So we’ve had drought then fires and now floods , sounds like Australia to me maybe someone should write a poem about it .
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There are reasonable arguments that Aboriginal people remained hunters & gatherers (and semi-nomadic) in almost all areas, because the weather cycles were too chaotic and unpredictable to make settled farming an economic proposition. Plus I suspect being a hunter/gatherer is rather more fun and relaxed than being a peasant farmer.
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Really?
Betwixt starvation and famine as your prey evades you sounds quite “fun” and “relaxed”.
Never mind what you really mean by “peasant”
I believe you are a [Snip]
Have no idea how the real world works.
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If you check some anthropology, you might find that hunter-gatherers – right up to the modern era – were often seen as better fed, and healthier, than settled farmers. And with more free time.
Farming was a necessity as populations grew … there is nothing intrinsically better about it – nor are there necessarily more calories returned for calories expended.
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I’ve checked some and doesn’t exactly sound like much fun .
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/10/life-and-death-in-pre-contact-aboriginal-australia/
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A simple question for climate scientists and meteorologists – What caused flooding before fossil fuel induced climate change caused it? There is only one honest answer and it is isn’t what climate scientists and meteorologists want us to know or believe. Their patent dishonsety and duplicity knows no bounds or integrity of character.
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Yeah but…..( a favourite saying of one of the young kids
that lived next door to us.)
They are getting PAID to spread this dishonesty and duplicity.
Oh boy.
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Excess rain … like now.
01
They want this banned from the reading list in Australia schools because it is contrary to current day religious teachings:
https://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
This is the part that really riles the high priests:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
They preach that if we stop burning fossil fuel then the weather will always be balmy. It is sinful to suggest the weather is constantly changing and was ever so.
If this was still required reading in Australian schools then the younger people of today would be more questioning of the propaganda in headlines that always start with “worst ever” – (choose your weather event). In 2020 it was the worst ever fires. In 2021 it was the worst ever floods. In 2017 it was the worst ever cyclone. In 2019 it was the worst ever drought. Always the worst ever. We no longer have droughts and flooding rains. Instead we have the worst ever drought and the worst ever floods. No longer any beauty; just heaps of TERROR all caused by the evil CO2.
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I have been “attacked” several times by trolls elsewhere when I posted about Dorethea Mackellar’s 1904 poem, they reject her memories by claiming that she was a privileged city person (like themselves?), a bohemian, with no knowledge of country life.
Yes she was a city girl and her family was wealthy, but she loved country life and spent much time on her parent’s country property and later on her brother’s country properties.
Then again the BoM ignores historic record data before 1910.
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Dennis
As a Dorothea fan you should try to get hold of the small book The Dorothea Mackellar My Country Paterson Valley Connection Revised 2016 Edition published as a limpback by the Paterson Historical Society Inc.
It details her history and the history of the poem with authoritative sources, the best of which was Dorothea during interviews in the 1960s where she explicitly states more than once that she wrote the poem at the age of about 13 on the family property Torryburn near Paterson, NSW as she watched the drought break and the filmy veil of green appear. Gunnedah claims the poem as its own, but Gunnedah is telling porkies.
She was a rich city girl, but one with a passion for the bush. The book will give you a ton more ammunition in your arguments. $15 + postage
https://patersonmuseum.square.site/product/the-dorothea-mackellar-my-country-paterson-valley-connection/22?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false
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Who is this “they”? Is there some evidence for this statement?
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Who is “they”?
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Well, I know who “she” is.
I got told this often enough when I was a kid.
” She’s the cats mother.”
As for they.
“They” can be anyone you can conjure up.
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That made me laugh…it’s one of our old family sayings!
Another, in answer to a question about something’s or someone’s whereabouts, ‘Under the buzunka tree’.
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Very off topic I know, but a little light relief never goes astray. When I was a child the standard answer from my parents to “Where’s my (fill in your own noun)” was “Up in Annie’s room ‘angin’ on an ‘ook.” ToM
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Aboriginal people have a totally logical (but inherently unhelpful) answer to the question, “Where is X (person or thing)?” … “Must be somewhere!”
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Never heard the bazunka thing but yes, The Cat’s Mother.
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Yeah, scientists are dishonest all the time. I don’t understand why many communities believe them. They’re doing it for the money.
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It is said there aren’t too many jobs in science – unless one can be ‘collegiate’.
One has to earn a living. Unfortunately, for anyone with a mean sense for truth, honour, the Australian Way and being a scientist to boot, one needs to steer clear of controversial (?honesty deprived) topics to study. That’s hard when one knows most of the money goes to wokist work that proves the world is flat or some such expectation. To retain one’s values then, some sort of circumlocular argument has to be made to present findings adverse to the officially ‘expected’ conclusions. OR, bin the findings!
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It’s very sad if you actually believe that, and it’s not just hyperbole.
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Based on yesterday’s Nine news report, I have to ask; how many New South Welshpersons have found stingrays in their lounge rooms?
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Living on the flat country around Walgett in the 1970,s we had to deal with all sorts of things post-flood dead and living. A levee was erected around the township and the town became an ark for all creatures ; insects hitherto unknown to science, brown snakes and a proliferation of Green frogs which infested every toilet/septic. Ladies were particularly worried about seating as a frog would often jump up and latch onto the inner side of a leg!
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That guy was a game lad dragging the stingray by it’s tail – but what gave me the creeps was
Thousands of spiders escape NSW floodwaters
In scenes typically reserved for nightmares, thousands of spiders have inundated homes as rising floodwaters force them out of their burrows.
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A while ago there was a picture published showing millions of spiders floating down a flooded river on a raft made of spider web.
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During the last big flood in our area the police helicopter was doing the rounds of the area making sure no one needed to be evacuated etc and at one stage they seen a calf stranded on a small patch of land covered in black poly, after hovering a few feet above the island a local cop I know who was on the chopper jumped down only to realise the island wasn’t covered in poly but black snakes .
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Oops!
40
CO2 does not tip the scales,
With more fires or flooding or gales,
For often times long ago,
When carbon dioxide was low,
Worse floods came to New South Wales.
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cross posted at https://freedomaustralia.freeforums.net/thread/1013/carbon-change-again-floods-1857
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But who is out there saving The Koalas.
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While enduring these floods,keep your eye out for the agenda driven Twits.
Sometimes they provide timeless comedy.
A few years back The Fraser River was cresting with spring melt and rain..A CBC talking head stood with the river behind her and babbled on about “Floods of Biblical proportions”
Ranting on about Global Warming and Evil us using hydrocarbons..until the camera man swung his camera a couple of degrees,showing a flood gauge/sign showing three historic flood levels of the past.
Fell off the couch laughing.
Life is tough when even a good union camera operator hates you so.
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🙂 🙂
50
I drove to Adelaide via the Swan Reach ferry after the usual blame the Murray flooding because of climate change BS. The pole at stop sign had old flood markers, so while I disn’t have as fsr down to the ferry as usual, the 1956 flood marker was well over my head.
A lot of flood mitigation works since then so it might never be repeated, but research shows a 4 times bigger flood just before European settlement. (Volume of water was 4x rather than height)
https://jimandjamie.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/13D05E04-4D42-4C68-8F06-5C032AAD9693-1152×1536.jpeg
71
Did Greens in the past block the construction of dams that would have lessened these floods?
120
Or have Greens blocked the dredging of rivers, as they have in the UK?
110
That caused a flood in our North Yorkshire village a few years ago. EU-mandated change in bridge design and a lack of traditional dredging plus heavy rain increasing the beck levels which then piled up rocks, which then collected silt, which then allowed rampant plant life…guess what! A flood!
A farmer in Cumbria had incredible masses of rocks piled up on his pasture after a bad flood. It won’t surprise you to learn that he wasn’t permitted to move them back afterwards. He lived near Cockermouth where they had a shocking flood in November 2009; a lot of the damage was caused by the lack of dredging there; after all, some d@mn salamander is far more important than the well-being of humans isn’t it?
41
Yes.
110
Even the rains that fall won’t fill our rivers. (sarc)
100
Sydney Opera House will be underwater by 2000.
But the person who made the prediction owns two waterfront properties on the Hawkesbury River NSW.
101
I notice it’s not underwater yet. So my burning question is: Who taught it to swim?
40
Wind Power and it’s effect upon the Weather/Climate.
Windmills take energy from the wind!
Wind Farms take lots of energy from the wind!
So, those favourably placed wind farms are altering the balance, the winds no longer go where they used to go nor do they have the same sort of energy. The winds no longer balance as they have had quite a considerable amount of energy removed.
That energy is converted into heat as it is used, where in the system is that energy most likely to be used, why in the cities, this further distorts the energy balance, it is not rocket science to see the inevitable.
Remove energy from one location and transport it to another and you can change the weather/climate.
It Is Just Logic, not science!
80
Cool fronts from the south along with La Niña bring heavy downpours to eastern Australia.
https://www.accuweather.com/pl/au/sydney/22889/weather-radar/22889
50
Sudden increases and decreases in geomagnetic activity suggest a meridional jetstream.
https://i.ibb.co/BPH1t8H/long-term-kp-forecast.png
50
It is very bad and it will get worse.
50
In previous generations we had wise governments that built dams to provide protection against droughts and floods. And provide hydro power.
But now, it’s a sin to alter the natural environment, according to the greenie governments.
130
ALL of OUR Grubbnmnts appear to be “owned” by the UN.
Long past time Australia exited the UN.
The UN has long passed its “use-by-date.”
110
UN Agenda 21 – Sustainability (now Agenda 30).
And in Australia Federal and State governments legislation and regulations imposing UN agenda.
Desalination plants instead of new dams, wind turbine installations claimed to supplement grid baseload electricity to supply desalination plants, and more. Could this be a globalist crony capitalist wealth creation scheme? [sarc]
Water licences, environmental water releases from existing dams even during a severe drought, more crony capitalism.
40
The animation below shows a cold cyclone front from the south blocking the low over eastern Australia.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=ausf×pan=24hrs&anim=html5
30
Sorry about the plagiarism but it was very useful for my note to PM Morrison:-)
“Subject: CO2 is not the problem!
Comment:
Carbon dioxide radically lower but floods destroy houses, cover beaches in debris across NSW in 1857!! Long before coal=fired power generation had been invented!
The more money we put into government-funded science the more it looks like witchcraft or which graft!
I put the education budget into the same category. No wonder the illiberal vote is dissipating.”
141
Nobody is blaming this rain event on climate change. It is worth noting though that every additional 1°C of air temperature potentially adds about 7% more water vapour to the atmosphere.
314
Don’t concern yourself, global warming has finally come to an end. Over the coming decade world temperature will remain flat due to a negative IPO and water vapour should increase because of the prevailing La Nina conditions.
81
I think you will find our old mate Steffen and his climate cronies certainly are blaming ‘global warming’, as it should be properly referred to, for the current weather conditions on the East coast of Oz. Although every historical reference is unanimous in telling us what the rational already know is just the result of the effects of an unpredictable chaotic system – the climate of the Earth. How we get this across to the deluded is the task we face daily.
61
Green bloke Adam Bandt and other bandits are referring right now to “global heating” causing floods.
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yeah what baloney. How could heating cause more water to be in the air? pfft.
[Oh pardon the pfft. Provide some science that shows anything unusual in the “water in the air” over any time period longer than 30 years.] Pfffft back at you.]ED
47
Yeah, and how would more water lead to droughts?
70
Wy 30 years? which 30 years? why not 30 minutes?
Gee Aye is just talking physics add heat energy, more water is held in the atmosphere
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/19/4863 <- try this for an explanation
[Hmm Gee cannot speak for himself? As a proxy for Gee you are not talking “climate” 30 years is climate. By issuing the Pfft, Gee invoked the nothing here to see clause. Is there something here to point out or not? If you are able provide evidence that anything unusual or anthro caused and is measured “water held in the atmosphere” for the last 30 years i.e.climate and thereby make a point?. Please return the microphone to Gee unless you want to finally admit to being one and the same?]ED
48
If there is 7% more rain globally, there would also be around 7% more albedo and 6W/m2 more loss of energy to space (88W/m2 for an average of 1000 mm, globally). Just roughly from emission of a blackbody ∝ T^4, there should be 3 degree drop in temperature.
It really is not that simple that there is 7% more rain in this event because of simple physics.
And 7% more rain is about 1-2% increase in flood height.
You really need a complex and convoluted explanation to argue climate change made this significantly worse.
51
As a simple though experiment, where is rain intensity higher? In the tropics or near the poles?
All covered by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation.
12
The tropics. because temperature increases the saturation pressure and water vapour naturally increases.
10
Sorry Gary; I hadn’t read on far enough to see that you say what I say below, re Steffen.
21
To grasp the enormity of the problem, here is a graph of the IPO.
https://teara.govt.nz/files/g-7788-enz.gif
20
Wrong, Simon. There was a long section in the ‘Live’ column in yesterday’s Australian quoting Will Steffen banging on at length, blaming ‘climate change’ for the floods. Look it up; I didn’t keep the link.
51
potentially.
00
Flooding events in Australia are cyclic and the length of the solar cycle is implicated, but what are the mechanisms?
This recent abstract points to the ITCZ and solar forcing.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/aop/JCLI-D-20-0455.1/JCLI-D-20-0455.1.xml
40
The floods aren’t any worse, there are just more people in the way.
Like people living in the sticks then being inconvenienced by bush fires.
Nature gives exactly zero phukks about our real estate choices.
How to reduce the number of people affected by weather events? Have fewer people. Nothing wrong with an Australia with 10 million people. Large populations lead to large problems.
130
“How to reduce the number of people affected by weather events? Have fewer people. Nothing wrong with an Australia with 10 million people. Large populations lead to large problems.”
Bill Gates loves you.
60
Back when Australia had 10 million people, we had electric trams and electric buses in every large city, and more rail lines were operating.
90
Yes, and all the electricity came from filthy, dirty coal fired plants like Zara Street here in NovoCastria.
A constant rain of soot.
And now in 2021 we could have coal fired power plants that emit nothing but CO2 which can help crops grow and keep the place looking green.
We “could”, but we don’t, and that’s another story.
121
Not to mention all the WEF types…
21
Well if he’d just hurry up a bit. Traffic is getting ridiculous.
00
Not floods but CO2
“Millennial CO2 And Temperature”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/22/millennial-co2-and-temperature/
From the text
“Here’s why all of that is important.
NOT ONE CLIMATE SCIENTIST KNOWS THE ANSWERS TO THOSE QUESTIONS.
Not one.
And from Figure 2 above, it is quite clear that the answer is not “CO2” …”
81
I’m relieved that Willis has finally seen the light.
40
The data show otherwise.
http://climatlas.com/temperature/jra55/jra55_globe_t2m_2021.png
http://climatlas.com/temperature/jra55/jra55_global_temp_anomaly_last30days.png
Temperature analysis (T319) from Japanese Met Agency (JRA-55 Reanalysis) on a 2-day Delay. Current climatology for data is 1981-2010 but maps were shifted to 1991-2020.
Never forget that there is a huge ocean east of Australia with warm water during La Niña.
40
The warm blob initially turned up on the tail of the ITCZ and gradually moved south.
40
Love this! Despite the fact that it is the frequency that is changing under AGW, this old “it happened once before a long time ago, therefore….”.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/extreme-weather-events-have-increased-significantly-in-the-last-20-years – is just one example
But hey – lets pretend that things aren’t getting worse despite the drought, the fires, the flood, all in the span of 3 years
324
You believe the headlines. The weather events are no worse than in any other time. The only thing that changes is the liberal use of the descriptor “worst ever”.
You may remember that Flannery firmly stated the dams will never fill again. The CSIRO climate model of 2010 predicted that the Nino3-4 region would never again see La Nina conditions after 2015. We are now seeing the results of the current La Nina and it has been in that mode for more than 6 months.
The weather changes. Climate is as steady as it has ever been; just the headlines change to promote the propaganda.
231
Weather is not getting more severe, natural variables rule.
The drought, bushfires and floods are typical of life in Australia and now its flood time due to La Nina conditions. El Nino won’t show because of the negative IPO which should produce cool and wet conditions over the next few years.
111
el gordo, I am talking about frequency not severity – did you misunderstand. Even on this site, the frequency of posts such as this, is much higher now, than when I first visited here back in the day, when I was looking for genuine sceptical sites
But whatever floats your boat
36
Yes sir, frequency is not increasing.
41
On the question of frequency, a meandering jet stream has the potential to create extreme weather cobbled together.
20
Extreme cold weather ?
60
Its on the cards that Australian could experience a catastrophic cold event over the coming decade.
51
Melbourne is right now, coldest summer in two decades followed by what anecdotally seems to be the coldest March I can recall in my 60 years. On top of the two previous 2018/2019 unusually cool Melbourne summers, we haven’t had a day over 40 since Jan’19.
31
Global cooling is a joy to behold, in real time with satellite surveillance we are watching climate change.
01
I have been through the cycle at least a dozen times….
90
Nonsense Peter.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/10/13/un-claimstaggering-rise-in-climate-emergencies-since-2000/
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/08/alternating-drought-and-flood-is-climate-not-climate-change/
But hey, let’s pretend you can trust climate ‘science’ not to be garbage/political.
101
yeah ok, bud…
tell me how you (or anyone else, for that matter) diagnose the cause of a particular disaster?
how do you tell which is natural and which is driven by us?
surely, if you can tell that, they should be then able to tell us exactly what percentage of our emissions are changing the climate, and in what way?
happy to wait for the scientific answer to these questions…
nothing we are seeing is unprecedented. nothing.
there is not one shred of scientific evidence that shows exactly how our emissions affect the climate and by what percentage.
not. one. shred.
71
Lack of understanding is no a refutation, Shannon.
As to what percentage, 100% is the commonly scientifically accepted answer
I am talking about a change in frequency – not amplitude.
Not one shred? – you need to get out more
38
really? so 100% of our emissions affect our climate? convenient.
got a source for that?
feel free to link to the empirical scientific evidence that shows exactly HOW our emissions affect the climate.
also, feel free to answer my first question, in your own good time, if you can.
51
Given that you obviously do not understand science, here is a simple explantion
https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
33
‘A stronger greenhouse effect will warm the ocean and partially melt glaciers and ice sheets, increasing sea level. Ocean water also will expand if it warms, contributing further to sea level rise.’
In the real world sea level is going to fall because of La Nina.
11
where’s the proof that 100% of our emissions affect the climate?
00
also, just for kicks, how about providing the information on how you (or anyone else) can separate natural emissions from our emissions and their affect on the climate.
51
Say what? Who says anything about separating them?
If I beat together eggs from different hens then I have more egg, though no way of separating the beaten egg by which hen laid it. What I can observe though is that I have more egg than if I just used one egg from one hen. Geddit?
btw, with regards to CO2 from fossil carbon, we don’t just get more, but we get more of a particular type. Isotope ratios and all that sort of nonsense.
36
i mean about being able to distinguish the percentages of our emissions that cause the climate to change, as opposed to natural emissions.
11
Maybe you should read slower.
11
‘In fact, carbon dioxide, which is blamed for climate warming, has only a volume share of 0.04 percent in the atmosphere. And of these 0.04 percent CO2, 95 percent come from natural sources, such as volcanoes or decomposition processes in nature. The human CO2 content in the air is thus only 0.0016 percent.’ (Climate.org)
31
There are more serious things to worry about:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/22/fireball-rocks-england-with-meteor-fragments-and-sonic-booms/
20
Another sure sign of CAGW !
21
History of significant flooding in Maitland are 1820, 1893, 1913, 1930, 1949, 1952 and 1955. The 1955 flood still remains to this day as the largest flood recorded in the Hunter Valley.
10
The only accurate climate related information that comes out of the Climate Council and Will Steffen is the climate of fear created amongst handwringers and headline readers. You know the sort of idiot who glues themselves to an inner city intersection to wave down the nearest useful idiot in the trashmedia.
While showing all of our historical media of exactly the same sort of weather, writ large in human property damage terms is interesting, it is white noise to zealots who have been brainwashed into accepting that a degree plus or minus or worse a weather EVENT!!!! is the fault of humans keeping warm or cool. The ‘experts’ like Steffen must be bombarded on publicly accessible channels and pertinent scientific questions asked and asked every day until answered in scientific terms rather than shrieking consensus drivel. Let’s devise those questions and mount a defence on the platforms hijacked by lunatics,, and publicly funded email accounts of public servants demanding answers. It’s more logical than gluing yourself to the road shrieking at the moon!
91
Even Their ABC admits raising the Warragamba Dam wall could have helped the current flooding in Western Sydney.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-23/plan-for-warragamba-dam-after-sydney-flooding-explained/100021180
60
Yet just yesterday ABC news breakfast spoke to someone from the ANU on why it shouldn’t be raised , is the ABC in danger of giving balanced opinions?
80
One Sydney Harbour worth of water going over Warragamba every day.
What a waste.
110
At least two sites for new dams were abandoned by the NSW Carr Labor Government soon after the Federal Keating Labor Government signed UN Treaty Agenda 21 around 1990.
One was south in the Shoalhaven District and the other west near Lithgow (Wollombi?), public land set aside by the NSW Askin Coalition Government 1965-1976.
The land for new dams became part of state lands converted to National Parks & Wildlife territory, Agenda 21, “for future generations”. No dams, no logging, no access to minerals and energy deposits, limited access, fire trails blocked, land management poor, bushfires killing wildlife, heavy rainfall not harvested and causing flooding in areas where flooding would be avoided if dams had been built.
91
Regarding the Manning River flood 1857 and therefore the NSW Mid North Coast districts, a relative of mine who is now deceased told me about her experience as a very young child living on her parent’s property at Coomba Park on Western side of Wallis Lake, about 50 kilometres South of the Manning River. The Eastern shore of Wallis Lake consists of a sand spit between the lake and ocean, today there is a road called The Lakes Way there.
In the early 1900s there was an enormous ocean storm surge adding to heavy rainfall and flooding there and large waves swept over into the lake and carried fishing boats up high onto the hillsides and other damage.
It is indeed the land of droughts and flooding rains.
I read last year that early settlers along the banks of the Hunter River that enters the ocean at Newcastle NSW, the port was originally inland at Maitland-Morpeth were told by Aborigines that not long before that time (mid-1800s) the Hunter had dried up completely above the high tide point and the tribes came together in peace to move to the upper reaches in the hills where spring water was still flowing.
The Hunter has not been dry since that time as far as I am aware.
60
Its somewhat tragic that Will Steffen and the other climate change talking heads can get away with promoting scientifically illiterate falsehoods and no-one can use the truth against them (except for a few websites). It is refreshing that there are still people (and more than a few of them here), that are debating the science and at the same time providing evidence for their position . To Jo and all of you – I salute you and keep up the good work.
61
[…] science anyone? JoNova points out similar severe flooding occurred in New South Wales in 1857. Clearly the 1857 floods were natural, […]
40
[…] science anyone? JoNova points out similar severe flooding occurred in New South Wales in 1857. Clearly the 1857 floods were natural, […]
30
Why is there no discussion on the role of landowners, developers, urban planners, local and state governments in this disaster? I mean if you build infrastructure and houses in the wrong place, *#!t will happen one day!
51
Stanley I believe it’s happened before , the developers blame the council the council blame the developers.
50
And they all pocket the difference in value of flood plain vis a vis “valuable new estate”.
40
US saved by bad weather a long time ago.
https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/northern-ky/weather/2020/09/24/the-tornado-that-saved-our-nation-s-capital
10
Groucho, a famous Marxist, said this about government funding to solve problems:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” (Groucho Marx)
100
“Groucho, a famous Marxist” – LOL!
Reminds me of a comedian explaining that a little boy once asked his dad “What is the United Nations?” Dad replies:
“Well son, when nations of the world can’t get along and it looks like there’ll be trouble ahead and that nothing can be done, they go to the United Nations for help. And the United Nations consults with everyone, considers all options, urges all parties to suggest a solution and then calls a great big meeting with all invited. And after all that,…..they decide nothing can be done.”
30
“…experts from the Climate Council”
Is this the same Climate Council that has Tim Flannery as the Chief Councillor? The same Tim Flannery as the one who told us we would be in permanent drought, shortly before Queensland turned into Lake Queensland in 2010?
91
Cool fronts from the south will now generate thunderstorms in Australia.
https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_lightning_maps.php
21
To all of us here on this site, and no doubt to many others out there, CO2 has bugger all to do with climate change or even global warming.
I wish more politicians from the right would just have the nerve and the guts to say it out loud ! !
Geoff W
101
1867 The Year of the Floods in New South Wales
Do searches and analysis on rainfall over all the years in the records, you’ll see extreme month(s)/year of rainfalls. Years of draughts followed by flooding rains. Dorothea MacKellar knew this more than 100 years ago before most of the human CO2 emissions. Even if you could blame AGW you only see 5 to 10% variation on events (dryer/wetter). Seeing that our region has had many months of cooler than normal temperatures, a cool Christmas in Sydney, I don’t see sufficient “warming” for causation.
The models can’t long range predict when El Nino / El Nina will occur. The IPCC acknowledge the problems of cloud uncertainty in the models ie. the outcomes predicted from models have no agreement with wide range plus&minus, don’t match cloud observations. These models are unreliable to predict trends in clouds & rainfall.
61
Tel’s post about the big Bondi rock is a fascinating puzzle,
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/03/carbon-dioxide-radically-lower-but-floods-destroy-houses-cover-beaches-in-debris-across-nsw-in-1857/#comment-2415004
Did it fall down, was other rock around it just stripped away or was it thrown up from the nearby seabed?
10
[…] science anyone? JoNova points out similar severe flooding occurred in New South Wales in 1857. Clearly the 1857 floods were […]
10
Don’t worry folks – the good people from Extinction Rebellion held up traffic in Perth yesterday and today and even had a “Die-in”. That’ll stop all CO2 production and the floods will end.
30
As has been said, the El Nino/La Nina cycles, and to a lesser extent, the IOD, are the main drivers of climate in the Southern Hemisphere, since it is mainly ocean…NOT CO2 levels, as people like Tom Foolery would have us believe (as for the Northern Hemisphere, it’s mainly land, so natural Summer/Winter cycles are the main driver there). Politicians are only interested in how many votes they can get…watch what happens when CAGW is disproved, and they fix their tiny minds on some other issue.
21
Not IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole) but IPO (Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation) which is the same as the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), hopefully not too confusing.
A new hiatus is happening and this should falsifiy the AGW hypothesis within five years.
02
will you shift to the other side if this does not eventuate?
21
This second hiatus is integral to my hypothesis, so yes, I would need to consider my future if El Nino turns up before 2025.
01
‘A titanic blocking high-pressure ridge south-southeast of Australia during the past 5+ days forced a deep upper trough to form along the southern Australia Coast this past weekend and into this week. Tropical moisture entrained into the upper trough from a warmer-than-normal water surface north and northeast of the continent lead to the 60-year flooding episode in Sydney and surrounding areas.’ (Climate Impact Company)
10
So the IOD has absolutely no effect on Australian (or Global) climate, at ANY time of the year. My abject apologies…the Indian Ocean does not exist. I wonder what we can substitute it for????
00