Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter

It’s another mindless record used to remind the public to “keep the faith” and recite the litany:

“Adelaide had it’s hottest start to the year since 1900” Sky news

Picking three particular days outof 365 and comparing them over a century is about as cherry-pickingly meaningless as it gets. But Ian Hill went back through the records to find that not only have there been 79 heatwaves in Adelaide since 1887, but there have been 51 heat-waves that were hotter since 1887.

Ian Hill crunched the numbers and wrote:

Using the definition of a heatwave being “three or more consecutive days at or above 38C”, for no other reason than the fact that this fits in nicely with Adelaide’s recent maxima of 38.0, 41.6 and 40.6 on Dec 31, Jan 1 and Jan 2 respectively, I found that there have been 79 such heatwaves recorded in Adelaide since Jan 21, 1887, the date of the first such information available from the BOM. The recent heatwave is ranked 52nd, where the average maximum of days involved is used to rank heatwaves of the same duration.

If the file is sorted in chronological order a familiar trend emerges where there are many years on end with no heatwaves, then clusters of them. Between 1973 and 1989 there was only one, a week-long heatwave in January 1982. The longest heatwave was in March 2008 where there were 12 consecutive days above 38 degrees C. In fact the day before was 37.9 and the previous two days to that were above 35, so it was reported as a 15-day heatwave. This would be the true “record” for many sites in SE Australia and for Adelaide it was called “a once in 3000 years occurrence”.

Probably the most severe heatwaves were in January 1908 where the Adelaide citizens endured a week of temperatures averaging 43.2. Earlier in the month they had six days averaging 41.8.

The Adelaide data comes from two BOM sites, West Terrace until 1976 and then Kent Town, 2km to the east. As far as I’m concerned there’s not much difference between them for the purposes of this exercise.

Regards

Ian

UPDATE: Someone has taken this nice data and done good graphs of Adelaide Heatwaves.

—————————————

Heatwaves in Adelaide

Definition: Three or more days at or above 38C

Observations: West Terrace site prior to 1977. Kent Town from 1977.

				Date
Rank	Date ended	Days	Ave max	order

1	Mar 17, 2008	12	39.342	75
2	Jan 19, 1908	7	43.243	23
3	Feb 2, 2009	7	42.271	76
4	Jan 24, 1982	7	40.843	58
5	Mar 13, 1934	7	40.743	40
6	Mar 13, 1940	7	40.600	44
7	Jan 7, 1908	6	41.750	22
8	Jan 14, 1927	6	41.367	35
9	Feb 13, 1899	6	41.267	12
10	Jan 19, 1934	6	39.717	39
11	Feb 22, 1997	6	39.367	64
12	Nov 15, 2009	6	39.150	77
13	Jan 10, 1939	5	42.860	42
14	Dec 30, 1897	5	40.580	8
15	Feb 4, 1898	5	40.540	9
16	Feb 13, 1939	5	40.060	43
17	Jan 6, 1906	4	43.950	19
18	Feb 3, 1912	4	43.300	28
19	Jan 13, 1905	4	42.925	18
20	Jan 29, 1943	4	42.200	47
21	Jan 3, 1900	4	41.850	13
22	Jan 11, 2010	4	41.775	78
23	Jan 22, 2006	4	41.475	72
24	Jan 12, 1889	4	41.300	2
25	Mar 4, 1942	4	41.300	46
26	Jan 19, 1959	4	41.000	50
27	Jan 1, 2008	4	40.925	74
28	Dec 31, 1898	4	40.575	11
29	Jan 25, 1921	4	40.525	32
30	Jan 28, 1961	4	40.375	52
31	Feb 3, 1993	4	40.125	63
32	Jan 21, 1973	4	39.750	57
33	Feb 15, 1895	4	39.500	7
34	Jan 25, 2001	4	39.300	68
35	Mar 3, 1989	4	38.825	59
36	Jan 28, 1900	3	42.333	14
37	Jan 22, 1889	3	42.067	3
38	Jan 9, 1930	3	41.867	36
39	Jan 31, 1968	3	41.700	54
40	Feb 15, 2004	3	41.667	71
41	Feb 19, 1914	3	41.633	29
42	Nov 30, 1922	3	41.467	34
43	Jan 1, 1905	3	41.300	17
44	Nov 26, 1894	3	41.200	6
45	Nov 23, 1888	3	41.067	1
46	Jan 3, 1991	3	40.867	61
47	Dec 24, 1920	3	40.800	31
48	Jan 6, 1999	3	40.400	66
49	Jan 19, 1901	3	40.333	15
50	Feb 18, 1892	3	40.300	4
51	Feb 10, 1930	3	40.100	37
52	Jan 2, 2012	3	40.067	79
53	Jan 16, 1960	3	40.033	51
54	Feb 17, 1916	3	39.967	30
55	Feb 4, 2000	3	39.967	67
56	Mar 2, 1893	3	39.933	5
57	Dec 26, 1941	3	39.933	45
58	Dec 9, 1906	3	39.900	20
59	Feb 8, 1970	3	39.900	55
60	Jan 6, 1910	3	39.867	25
61	Feb 4, 1991	3	39.767	62
62	Feb 21, 1910	3	39.700	27
63	Dec 17, 2002	3	39.667	70
64	Feb 5, 2007	3	39.633	73
65	Feb 12, 1921	3	39.600	33
66	Feb 17, 1910	3	39.533	26
67	Feb 1, 1903	3	39.467	16
68	Mar 8, 1989	3	39.433	60
69	Feb 25, 1907	3	39.400	21
70	Dec 7, 1908	3	39.367	24
71	Feb 17, 1971	3	39.233	56
72	Feb 24, 1898	3	39.167	10
73	Jan 31, 1951	3	39.167	49
74	Feb 20, 2001	3	39.100	69
75	Dec 7, 1950	3	39.067	48
76	Mar 4, 1930	3	39.033	38
77	Feb 25, 1935	3	38.767	41
78	Feb 26, 1998	3	38.733	65
79	Feb 6, 1967	3	38.600	53

9.2 out of 10 based on 74 ratings

162 comments to Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter

#

Jake

January 6, 2012 at 4:35 am

Interesting post, not knowing Adelaide and therefore not familiar with the two sites it would be interesting to hear if UHI can even play an issue here. What I did find in the dates is the following

Reported heat waves
3 in 1898
3 in 1908
3 in 1910
3 in 1930
All other years had only 1 or 2
11 between 1944 and 1988
32 from 1888 till 1921, the first 33 year period
20 from 1989 till 2012, the last 33 year period, although 2012 is only just starting, is it likely that Adelaide will get another 13 heat waves to break the record

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  Rereke Whakaaro
  
  January 6, 2012 at 5:11 am
  
  Nice piece of analysis, Jake.
  
  Has anybody in Aus tried contacting the Editor at Sky News, to see if they would be prepared to comment?
  
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  paul
  
  January 6, 2012 at 1:02 pm
  
  the shift from west terrace to kent town gave a shift in about + .5c. , which makes creating a modern record easier
  
  I asked BOM what constituted a heat wave and they said
  it was the number of consecutive days over 35C.
  
  I thought this curious because this is only 95 F ,
  why not use 100 F
  
  They then said the term heatwave has only been used in fairly recent times (30 years i think)
  
  I immediately thought the term could be misused by alarmists because all they now had to say is we have had a record heatwave without having to quote any data
  
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    John Brookes
    
    January 6, 2012 at 6:10 pm
    
    Over the full length of the two records, Kent Town is indeed an average of 0.48 degrees warmer than West Terrace. However there was a period from 1 Feb 77 to 28 Feb 79 where both stations were in operation. During that time Kent Town was warmer than West Terrace by an average of 0.13 degrees.
    
    Which suggests that the increase in average maximum temperature from the period 1887 – 1977 to the period 1977 – 2011 is 0.35 degrees.
    
    Anyway, the good news is that Perth continues its lovely mild summer.
    
    In my childhood, as I imagine in most of yours, there was no airconditioning. We’d open the house up overnight, and then shut every window, curtain, blind etc as soon as it started to get warm. I worked in a soft drink factory in school holidays in the mid 70’s, and if it got hot they had sprinklers on the roof. The way I could tell if it was really hot at school was to feel the wooden desks. If they were warm to the touch, it was hot!
    
    Perth doesn’t get many days over 44, but I was riding my bicycle on a couple of them (a long time ago). I distinctly remember the odd sensation of getting hotter while gathering speed rolling down a hill.
    
    Anyway, don’t get too paranoid about the media. It was the hottest start to the year since 1900, even if that is a somewhat dodgy statistic. If the 1st 3 days of winter are unusually cold, the media will be reporting that too. They aren’t always against you.
    
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      Ian Hill
      
      January 6, 2012 at 8:41 pm
      
      John, the Kent Town site, tucked away in inner suburbia and next to a private school is more sheltered than West Terrace. The Stevenson Screen is less than 30 metres from the bitumen road to the east and a car park to the west, and the BoM building to the south and trees all around. It has been rated a 3 on Anthony Watts’ scale of 1 to 5 for weather observation sites.
      
      The West Terrace site was also next to a school and had parklands to the west and the city centre to the east. About 500m to the north were the busy railway yards of Adelaide station where prior to 1965 many steam engines operated suburban, country and interstate rail services as well as goods trains. On hot days the northerly winds blowing over the yards would no doubt influence temperature readings.
      
      As far as the media is concerned, when I was working for the government (ABS) it was routine procedure to gather any media stories relevant to the output of the department, whether directly or indirectly, and issue a statement (press release, letter to editor – whatever was appropriate) if it was felt that clarification was necessary. Does the Bureau of Meteorology ever do this? I no longer read newspapers or watch the news, but I doubt the BOM has issued a rebuttal of the recent “record heartwave” claims.
      
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        The Black Adder
        
        January 6, 2012 at 9:30 pm
        
        Gday Ian,
        
        Great Post, as an old Croweater!
        
        I remember going to the Adelaide Oval Cricket tests!
        
        My mates at the time with me started the day drinking at the Kent Town Pub before , during and after the days play! I bet that stevenson screen decreased a bit in temp., when we were relieving ourselves after a few pints at the cricket in the afternoon session!
        
        Is that attributed to AGW?
        
        Is Kent Town a realistic representation of South Australia?
        
        So many questions, but little answers from BOM.
        
        PS. Great to see the Aussies and MJ Clarke win some respect at the SCG today.
        
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  Jake
  
  January 6, 2012 at 2:48 pm
  
  Mistake in the last 33 year period, should read from 1979. It adds one heatwave.
  
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  zbcustom
  
  January 6, 2012 at 6:09 pm
  
  I rather like the decadal breakdown. This gives 1890s 7; 1900s 13; 1910s 7; 1920s 4; 1930s 7; 1940s 4; 1950s 3; 1960 4; 1970s 3; 1980s 3; 1990s 6; 2000s 10.
  If you care to graph this you get quite a nice looking hockey stick effect showing an alarming increase since the 80s following a little ice age from the 40s to the 80s. Sound familiar?
  Of course to use this to its best effect you need to hide the Federational Warm Period from 1880s to the 1920s. I am sure there will be some budding statistician with a normalising or filtering routine who can do the necessary.
  
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    Manicbeancounter
    
    January 10, 2012 at 9:38 am
    
    I have done such a graph. See here
    
    Adelaide seems to be bucking the global trend of extreme weather events 🙂
    
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#

KinkyKeith

January 6, 2012 at 5:13 am

Do not trust Official pronouncements on temperature extremes.

They are like all statistics quoted by politicians, skewed to make a point.

Here in Newcastle, it seems that Nobby’s Head readings are now supplemented by those from NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY.

If you know anything about our city you will appreciate the potential for UHI effect.

Of course the new location readings could be “corrected” to fit the older location? or maybe the older data could be corrected to bring it online with the new measuring station.

A real can of worms no doubt overseen by the UON Faculty of Climate Change.

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Rereke Whakaaro

January 6, 2012 at 5:18 am

I particularly like the fact that the hottest heat wave on record was only four years ago!

This is typical of the media, with an attention span with the same half-life as a mayfly: “We do the breaking news. We are not interested in history – history is just old news.”

An attitude, of course, that permits them to change history as they see fit.

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 11:17 am
  
  I agree Rereke. Ten year olds would be able to remember the 2008 heatwave. The remarkable thing about that one was that it was in March and getting towards the equinox. For two weeks every day was the same, between 38-40 degrees, with no one day peaking at say 44 degrees. I recall that parts of Asia had record cold at the same time and began wondering whether there was any connection between the extreme events.
  
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Madjak

January 6, 2012 at 5:55 am

Talk about scrambling.

Oh well, maybe they can ask the csiro or the bom for a statistical way to hide the decline?

Maybe they can use mikes nature trick?

I got a chuckle out of them yesterday as they had to admit that last year was one of the coolest and wettest years. They took pains to state that this bucked the overall warming trend-except for a whole raft of other continents, which also experienced cooling.

I am now waiting for the whole “cooling is due to global warming” argument to rear it’s head now. I can’t wait!

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Geoff Brown

January 6, 2012 at 6:01 am

There were bad heatwaves in 1896 in South Eastern Australia also.

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Graeme No.3

January 6, 2012 at 6:03 am

By complete decades, then 20 year blocks can we see any pattern?

2000-2009 11 ; 17
1990-1999 6
1980-1989 3 ; 6
1970-1979 3
1960-1969 3 ; 6
1950-1959 3
1940-1949 4 ; 11
1930-1939 7
1920-1929 5 ; 11
1910-1919 6
1900-1909 12 ; 21
1890-1899 9

Adelaide seems to be repeating 100 years ago.

Adelaide is a sloping plain, running roughly N-S, between sea (Gulf) on the W and hills on E.
UHI was evident in 1960’s as a ‘bubble’ of heat over much of the city, with near sea suburbs (or those on city edge) noticeably cooler as one drove around. There has been much growth of trees in suburbia since, but also in power usage, but I couldn’t blame UHI for heating up city.

Hot weather bursts are caused by “highs” (anti-clockwise circulation) moving slowly so NW winds blow from the desert centre of Australia. If they move quickly there is usually only one hot day. If latitude of these “highs” varies, then this can affect the amount of heat brought down, so in that case they are due to world wide circulation changes.

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  J Knowles
  
  January 6, 2012 at 10:11 am
  
  Piers Corbyn might suggest that you use the 22 year solar cycle as a framework, starting with the magnetic switch in 2008.
  I take your point about the slowly tracking weather cells. The Au maps at the BOM show very sluggish activity which gives the impression of heat waves over small regions like Adelaide but the overall picture is of a cool damp summer ‘down-under’.
  
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pattoh

January 6, 2012 at 6:08 am

“I am now waiting for the whole “cooling is due to global warming” argument to rear it’s head now. I can’t wait!”

Kinda like the “battlers” will be “over compensated” for the increased cost of their reticulated power……………that’ll work!

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Speedy

January 6, 2012 at 6:51 am

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”…

WSC.

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pat

January 6, 2012 at 6:55 am

it’s the loveliest, coolest summer up here in SE-Qld.

4 Jan: Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia ethanol plant sold, at taxpayers’ loss
The failed Range Fuels wood-to-ethanol factory in southeastern Georgia that sucked up $65 million in federal and state tax dollars was sold Tuesday for pennies on the dollar to another bio-fuel maker with equally grand plans to transform the alternative energy world.
LanzaTech, a New Zealand-based biofuel company, paid $5.1 million for the plant in Soperton. Its main financial backer: Vinod Khosla, a California entrepreneur who also bankrolled Range Fuels, and helped secure its government loans, before Range went bust last year.
LanzaTech hasn’t received the same type of loans, but the company has received $7 million from the U.S. departments of Energy and Transportation to assist in the development of alternative fuels…
The Bush administration’s Energy Department steered a $76 million federal grant to Range. The Department of Agriculture followed up with an $80 million loan guarantee. Georgia officials pledged $6.2 million. Treutlen County, one of the state’s poorest, offered 20 years worth of tax abatements and 97 acres in its industrial park.
Private investors reportedly put up $158 million. In all, the project raised more than $320 million.
Range, unable to turn wood into ethanol, closed its doors a year ago. It never came close to creating the 70 jobs once promised…

Jeb Simons, an engineer in Savannah whose family hails from Soperton, doesn’t expect much of the taxpayer investment to be recouped. He blames Khosla.
“He takes government money, builds the place and takes the money and runs,” said Simons, ” . . . and now he’s double-dipping on government funds for round two. That’s taxpayer money that could go toward schools or hospitals or be given back to taxpayers.”
Khosla, who made his billions as a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, has invested heavily in alternative energies, cellulosic ethanol in particular. Khosla is listed as “a key investor” in LanzaTech and sits on the board of directors, according to the New Zealand company’s website. A call to Khosla Ventures was not returned Wednesday…
http://www.ajc.com/business/georgia-ethanol-plant-sold-1289567.html

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  Winston
  
  January 6, 2012 at 9:36 am
  
  Perhaps Tristan, MattB, Catamon or John B would like to comment on this egregious waste of tax payer dollars ($320 million, loose change really) and profiteering by a billionaire for pie in the sky schemes that not only have no chance of success, but are obviously designed to fail, leaving taxpayers and investors in the red!
  
  Common guys, when are you going to erect a statue to Mr Khosla, hero of the proletariat!
  Perhaps you can sing rousing songs of his “heroism” around the campfire.
  
  There’s no fool like a green fool. Happy to spend other people’s money on gestures and symbolism.
  
  Let’s hear it then guys. Hello, is there anybody out there……..??
  
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    Andrew McRae
    
    January 6, 2012 at 5:56 pm
    
    Well to be fair, the existence of poorly planned business ventures does not logically disprove global warming alarmism, but it does cast a shadow over once-trumpeted greenwashed attempts to “fight climate change”.
    
    One must be careful to remain a true skeptic and not a denier. Throwing the baby Slimer out with the broken proton gun is confusing product failure with ghostbusting. (I love a good mixed metaphor.) Admitting ghosts don’t exist and the phenomenon perceived as unusual have a natural explanation is still of course politically unacceptable.
    
    It’s interesting in that movie that the argument “Peter” uses to convince the Mayor to authorise further expensive Ghostbusting is the same precautionary principle rubbish being used to justify the climate crusade today, with one notable difference: the Ghostbusters agreed to go to jail if they were wrong!
    
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      Winston
      
      January 6, 2012 at 6:44 pm
      
      True, Andrew, it does not disprove AGW, that has been rendered by observations at odds with the predictions of their hypothesis, a fact they choose to ignore because it is convenient to do so to preserve the agenda they hope to serve.
      
      There is, however, a catalogue of failures already in the Green scheme game, and it’s only just the beginning of future failures and waste- witness Range fuels above, Flannery’s failed Geodynamics, Solyndra, useless wind farms unable to produce more than a fraction of base-load supply during times of greatest need, solar panels poorly installed by fly by night tradesmen with little or no expertise (which will also no doubt become prematurely obsolete due to shoddy quality control, cheap materials and inefficient technology), the pink batts scheme (which was the forerunner to all that has followed) to name but a few instances- poor planning is the hallmark of these people, not the exception.
      
      And yet those who have allowed us to be vulnerable to such rorts shrug their collective shoulders and say “Meh, not us, not our doing”, or worse remain silent like the Moai statues on Easter island- mute symbols of a dead civilisation.
      
      Energy itself has been rendered into a premium commodity, where any purveyors of energy (good, bad or ugly) can charge an arm and a leg for deigning to allow us the “privilege” of sourcing that which we up till now took for granted. Not some luxury item like BMWs or the latest luxury spa, but a true necessity to feed, clothe and house our selves and our children, keeping them safe from the privations of hunger and to shelter from the wrathful elements that potentially can compromise our collective well-being.
      
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  Rereke Whakaaro
  
  January 6, 2012 at 11:26 am
  
  It is interesting that although LanzaTech is registered in New Zealand, 5.1 million of the 7.7 million shares in LanzaTech are owned by Mr Khosla, through one channel or another.
  
  Only 1.8 million shares are actually owned by New Zealand residents.
  
  I also note with interest that 670 thousand shares are registered to holding companies in the Cayman Islands – always an eyebrow raiser.
  
  And the U.S. departments of Energy and Transportation have jointly given the company US$7m … Hmm?
  
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    Mark D.
    
    January 6, 2012 at 1:21 pm
    
    I’d want to know how much these nice folk have given back to the US. Like for instance contributions to the Arts, the schools, the candidates……..
    
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    Winston
    
    January 6, 2012 at 3:43 pm
    
    I notice the Greek chorus of Alarmistas has yet to comment on the ease with which “entrepreneurs” such as our kiwi billionaire can relieve the general public of their hard earned cash using so called “green schemes”.
    
    The silence is of course deafening, could it be a touch of embarrassment at being such patsies? Don’t count on it. That would require a modicum of self-analysis and humility.
    
    At least they are using the federal funding to promote the economy of the Cayman Islands- a prototypical and worthy 3rd world country, no doubt.
    
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    Richard C (NZ)
    
    January 7, 2012 at 1:23 pm
    
    Lanzatech got $3m of US$7.7m, $4.7m went to other companies.
    
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  Richard C (NZ)
  
  January 7, 2012 at 1:19 pm
  
  Had a look at Lanzatech’s economic viability for ethanol production in the US at the Range Fuels biorefinery (now “Freedom Pines Biorefinery”, not yet producing) now that ethanol subsidies have been removed:-
  
  US$2.13 breakeven (converted from an NZ feasibility study)
  
  Ethanol price, FOB Omaha plant (Dollars per gallon)
  
  Tax provisions extended indefinitely: 1.63
  
  Tax provisions expire as scheduled: 1.34
  
  This doesn’t include any advantage (none that I can see) of a reduced initial investment at Freedom Pines due to the “pennies on the dollar” purchase.
  
  That’s if they are producing fuel ethanol but how it works out for alternative aviation fuel is anyone’s guess. Lanzatech’s aviation fuel contracts are to the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), through the Department of Transportation’s John A. Volpe Center, to “accelerate commercial availability of the next generation of alternative aviation fuel” and to Virgin Atlantic for development of a “world first low carbon aviation fuel with just half the carbon footprint of the standard fossil fuel alternative”.
  
  More here: http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/open-threads/climate/climate-science/energy-and-fuel/comment-page-2/#comment-76590
  
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Peter OBrien

January 6, 2012 at 7:12 am

Great post, Ian. I heard the ABC 24 weather reporter say that “Adelaide had its hottest start to the year since 1900 when records began” That set alarm bells ringing because I knew that records were kept long before 1900.

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 11:43 am
  
  Thanks Peter. The file I used came from the BOM’s website and contains daily temperature records from 1887. These are the actual raw measurements converted from degrees fahrenheit. No doubt there were records in existence before then.
  
  The earliest reference to Adelaide’s heat is on a plaque at The Old Gum Tree in Glenelg where the first arrivals from England (and NOT convicts) noted the extreme heat on 28 December 1836 and subsequent days and decided to see out the nights back on the ship.
  
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Bob of Castlemaine

January 6, 2012 at 7:12 am

Typo Jo:

“keep the faith” and recite the litancy:

I presume that should be litany?

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pat

January 6, 2012 at 7:17 am

5 Jan: UK Telegraph: Peter Simpson: Chinese airlines warn they will refuse to pay EU carbon tax
China’s biggest airlines warned on Thursday they will refuse to pay a new EU tax aimed at cutting carbon emissions.
The China Air Transport Association was more militant in its response – declaring its members would not co-operate with the ETS and refuse to pay the added tax.
It also said it would seek legal action and try and attempt to form an international alliance to scrap the scheme…
China is likely to be able to pull unusually heavy punches in the dispute as its air carriers ferry hundreds of thousand of passenger from Asia into Europe’s troubled markets, including the tourist sector…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/emissions/8994947/Chinese-airlines-warn-they-will-refuse-to-pay-EU-carbon-tax.html

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Tom

January 6, 2012 at 8:29 am

Further evidence that the ABC and Fairfax are running a crusade when they are supposed to be reporting the news and are totally out of step with the rest of the world.

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val majkus

January 6, 2012 at 8:49 am

good news (relates to the UK)and TonyfromOz will be relieved:

A nice little report out telling us that going green isn’t in fact going to cost us anything. Which is indeed nice as just about everyone else would just love to clean up the planet, reduce pollution and not boil Gaia but we have this sneaking suspicion that the costs of doing so are going to be greater than the benefits. So to hear that it won’t cost anything is just glorious: miraculous in fact.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/30/lying-with-numbers-green-energy-edition/

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  Rereke Whakaaro
  
  January 6, 2012 at 9:53 am
  
  Ya know, what I find so offensive? The people who come up with these arguments are either stupid, or they are laughing at the people they supposedly serve because they assume the rest of us are stupid.
  
  In either case, the question must be asked, “Why are they being paid from the public purse?”.
  
  They should not be allowed to breed.
  
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    Mark D.
    
    January 7, 2012 at 12:10 am
    
    They should not be allowed to breed.
    
    Ouch!
    
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    Andrew McRae
    
    January 7, 2012 at 8:54 pm
    
    ” They should not be allowed to breed. ”
    
    Don’t worry, we’ve got `em under surveillance.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-07/brown-slams-spying-on-environmental-activists/3762308
    
    The cops will send in a raid if Bob Brown shows any signs of being feisty. 😀
    
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Mark

January 6, 2012 at 8:49 am

Just over the news:

Xinhua is reporting that the Chinese government is now “hedging” over the implementation date of its (derisory) AU$1.59 per tonne CO2 tax. It will most probably be delayed because of the current world economic position.

So the Chinese have given themselves an “out” clause before it has even started. Smart people, those Chinese.

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  Madjak
  
  January 6, 2012 at 4:13 pm
  
  smarter than our dumb ar*e rabble of a gvt, thats for sure.
  
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    The Black Adder
    
    January 6, 2012 at 9:49 pm
    
    Smarter,, huh.
    
    Our dear Red Dalek of a leader has our price at $26 per tonne.
    
    Followed by an increase of $2 per tonne every year after that until the ETS kicks in.
    
    Global Financial Crisis or not, be damned!
    
    Smarter, hey!
    
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Garry

January 6, 2012 at 9:09 am

I wonder what the temperature in Adelaide was around 6th February 1851 when the temperature in Melbourne reached 117 deg F (47 deg C) in the shade at 11:00 am and probably 50 deg C later in the day.

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 11:49 am
  
  I’ve searched some newpapers from around that time Garry but haven’t found anything.
  
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Eric of Kilsyth

January 6, 2012 at 9:33 am

Here in Melbourne, the Herald-Sun also carried a story warning that the predicted high of 36 degrees would be the hottest start to the year in a century. Apart from the fact that the city centre only reached 34 degrees on New Year’s Day, the report lost most of its significance and gained “so what” status when it was pointed out by a reader that the maximum temperature on New Year’s Eve 2010 was 41 degrees! I really don’t know whether it is dishonesty, disingenuity or delusion but the apparent campaign to push the warming agenda is relentless.

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  Aussie
  
  January 6, 2012 at 8:29 pm
  
  well, being from Melbourne, and remembering how hot it used to be during the 1960s, I think that they are talking big b.s.
  
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media finding it hot again…caught out | pindanpost

January 6, 2012 at 9:38 am

[…] Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter […]

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val majkus

January 6, 2012 at 10:07 am

Tallbloke has a post http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/i-am-spartacus-stand-up-and-be-counted-for-science/
lead in paras:

Strong words softly spoken. This morning, I noticed someone had visited and commented on an old thread from last year about the Republican vote to defund the IPCC. The comment showed a strong belief in science, and condemnation of the way politics and other non-scientific forces have tried to turn science into a tool of propaganda. What impressed me the most was that this is a person of good standing in the science community, who was prepared to put his full name and list his qualifications and institutional affiliation at the bottom of his comment.

IPCC should not only be defunded, it should be deleted as an agency. The reason is its misuse of the concept of science. It has never been meant to rely on correct science and uses science for one simple reason. People believe in science, since people have seen the result of powerful applications of it during 100 years. IPCC uses this fact to “sell” its political message to get support from ordinary people. Science is a “brand” for selling propaganda. The only way to keep the IPCC is for it to skip any claim of being scientific at all and clearly declare what it really is: a political organization.

Willis Eschenbach at WUWT has a post calling for defunding of the IPCC

He says the US have been clandestinely providing about half the operating funds for the IPCC for the last decade. In other words, the IPCC funding arrangements are of a piece with their “scientific” claims and their other actions—secretive, shabby, with a hidden agenda, and full of disinformation.

I wonder where the IPCC get the rest of its operating funds from?

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MudCrab

January 6, 2012 at 10:13 am

Do they follow it up by mentioning the current five day forecast?

According to my accuweather.com doflicky on my phone…

Sat 33/18
Sun 23/16
Mon 25/16
Tue 25/13
Wed 26/13

Cost reference that with the long term mean max/min of 29.2/17 from weatherzone.com.au and draw your own hysterical conclusions – IT’S AN ICE AGE!!! 😛

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  Siliggy
  
  January 7, 2012 at 11:37 am
  
  Where are the headlines about the progress of our permanent drought?
  Check out the last year and notice the one dot near Cape Arid Western Aust.
  http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=drought&period=12month&area=nat
  Then look at this year so far.
  http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=percent&period=cmonth&area=wa
  
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brc

January 6, 2012 at 10:52 am

I don’t want to comment on the heat records or the sensationalist reporting – I’ll even restrain from commenting on the dirge that the Australian printed about 2010 complete with ‘keep the faith’ remarks from David Jones of the BOM (he of the ‘baffle them with BS’ email to Phil Jones).

But what I do want to comment on is the heat wave in 1908.

Can you imagine bearing this?

For the record you have to do it with:
– no air conditioning – anywhere
– no refrigerated drinks or food
– no swimming pools – or, if you did find one, your costume had to have full length arms and legs or you might get arrested for indecent exposure.
– no electric fans

This should give pause to anyone agitating for less energy usage. I doubt any of the modern day greens would last 30 minutes in a 1908 heatwave. All of the above items that were missing require large amounts of electricity to make them happen.

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 12:11 pm
  
  Here’s a couple of Advertiser articles from January 20th 1908, “Relief For Suffering Humanity” and “A Blast From The Furnace”. You’ll need to scroll down to see them.
  
  http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5121728
  
  They also show that temperature records were kept in Adelaide well before 1887.
  
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    brc
    
    January 6, 2012 at 12:57 pm
    
    Thanks Ian for that. I took a read – it seems that the ‘ice man’ was still delivering at some points, but that supply became unreliable unless you had connections at the ice plant.
    
    A good analogy for unreliable wind or solar power – when it comes to the crunch and power isn’t available, it’s going to be an uneven distribution who gets it and who doesn’t.
    
    Luckily for us, dying from heat is much easier to avoid than dying from cold. Once the UK starts to close down more power stations and open up more windmills, the next brutal winter is going to be a very frightening affair. Many central heating systems in the UK rely on electricity either to blow the warm air around, or to provide the heat in the first place.
    
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  MattB
  
  January 6, 2012 at 6:23 pm
  
  “your costume had to have full length arms and legs or you might get arrested for indecent exposure.”
  
  What makes you say that? Here’s some 1908 bathing costumes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/4115677815/
  anyway even if you were correct it would still be cool in the water.
  
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    Otter
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:02 pm
    
    People have always bucked the trend in every generation, matty. Those people did it then, with bathing suits; WE do it now, against ideaology-backed ‘science.’
    And we will win, of course. Unfortunately, people might want to go back to the old-style bathing suits, as things are getting Cooler.
    
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    Mark D.
    
    January 7, 2012 at 12:24 am
    
    All beautiful ladies no doubt.
    
    I do hope that today’s NSW bathing beauties know how to deal with hirsute legs however!
    
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    brc
    
    January 7, 2012 at 8:41 am
    
    MattB: You have a point, Australian standards were somewhat more liberal than European and North American at the time. But you’d hardly call your linked photo comfortable!
    
    As for the story on getting arrested, brush up on a bit of Australian History:
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Kellerman
    
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  The Black Adder
  
  January 6, 2012 at 10:00 pm
  
  It`s ok brc,
  
  Bob wants us to live in Caves….
  
  Its cool in caves….
  
  Can you bring the torch though, I`ve run out of batteries. 🙁
  
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Hasbeen

January 6, 2012 at 11:16 am

If they’d asked me I could have told them it gets hot in Adelaide, when the wind blows off the desert.

In 68, [before global warming?], I drove a Brabham F1 in the Gold Star Australian racing championships South Oz round at Mallala.

This was in mid October, no where near summer. In both Saturday practice, & Sunday race the bitumen melted. Just try getting a new visor for your helmet, in Adelaide, on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. I needed a new one, as we could not get the melted bitumen off the one I was using, & get it clear enough to see through.

We also had a big cleanup job in the cockpit. No I had not frightened myself that much, but it had got hot enough to trigger the newly installed automatic fire extinguisher, set at 55C if I remember right, which blew foam every where. Just try slowing from about 140/150MPH for a 30 MPH hairpin, with foam all over your feet & pedals. You’ve no idea how much pleasure it gave me, throwing that thing into the tip the next week back in Sydney.

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  brc
  
  January 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm
  
  I hope you mean the fire extinguisher and not the Brabham went into the tip!
  
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  Winston
  
  January 6, 2012 at 1:28 pm
  
  I lived in Adelaide in 1968 as a 6 year old lad, and notwithstanding only 5 years or so later people referring to “impending ice ages”, I remember days of (seemingly) unending high temps >100 deg F that summer, and to a lesser extent the next summer as well, and the heat was still severe in the middle of the night, so much so that my family slept on the front lawn for up to several days at a stretch because it was the only place to get relief, lying directly on the ground in our underwear (the kids that is)- a very vivid memory of mine.
  
  Adelaide is a desert-edge town pure and simple, always hot as blazes in the summer- my only surprise with Ian’s statistics is that the heatwaves weren’t MORE frequent than they were. The attempts to catastrophize these relatively common occurrences is pathognomonic of the hysteric alarmist, unconcerned about clear-eyed reality or fact based assessments. The attempts to avoid “seeing” precedents of a similar degree in the past, even when they are a matter of public record, is shameful and such people should be held to task in the firmest possible manner.
  
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    Otter
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:07 pm
    
    A friend of mine in Missouri is currently complaining about the mild winter (he is an AGW believer). I did a little research…. to be exact, winter of ’66.
    It was Much warmer than it is now. Odd how that works, since the world was cooling at the time. I know this is the wrong term, but I have to wonder about precession in weather patterns, relative to climate shift (Yeeks. Left the ‘f’ out of ‘shift’ the first time I typed it…)
    
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    Aussie
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:34 pm
    
    Yes, and the weather was repeated in Melbourne, where I lived. What was very dramatic was the sudden temperature drop in roughly 1971.
    
    During January 1959 there was a heatwave in Melbourne where the temperature reached more than 110F. This happened at a time when my oldest sister was in a coma at the Alfred hospital in Melbourne.
    
    Meanwhile, the OOdnadatta record temperature in 1960 of more than 45C has not been smashed. The recent record in Pilbara W.A. did not beat that Oodnadatta record.
    
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    Mark D.
    
    January 7, 2012 at 12:34 am
    
    Winston, I thought you were older and wiser than me…….now I see you are younger and wiser. 🙁
    
    Not by much though 🙂
    
    Happy 50th when it comes around!
    
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      Winston
      
      January 7, 2012 at 8:38 am
      
      I’ll join the dark side soon enough. When I do I’ll sit back and enjoy a Cooper’s sparkling ale like any true South Australian, it’s mother’s milk to us “Crow-eaters” (as we are nicknamed here, Mark, FYI). Happy New Year to you, as an aside, and all the best for 2012, I think we all may need all the luck we can get.
      
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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 6:40 pm
  
  Back in 68 you couldn’t buy petrol in Adelaide on the weekend, except at the airport and the outermost suburbs, so I’m not surprised to read about the visor difficulty.
  
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Hasbeen

January 6, 2012 at 2:15 pm

No brc, the Brabham is still racing in the historic racing scene, owned by a bloke who loves it dearly. I had a sit in it at the Eastern Creak Tasman Revival meeting recently.

Not too sure I like this thought, but if the car is a historic racer, what does that make me.

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  TonyfromOz
  
  January 6, 2012 at 3:42 pm
  
  Hmm!
  Just musing here Hasbeen.
  
  Might you mention how much you admire Bruce McPhee?
  
  (Now that is obscure)
  
  Tony.
  
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    Otter
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:08 pm
    
    Any relation to Nannie?
    
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Streetcred

January 6, 2012 at 2:30 pm

For this past week BoM has misforecast Brisbane temperatures every day by between 2C and 4C … 5-day forecasts for lower temperatures each day compared to the previous day as the “heat” has failed to materialise and we even had a little rain shower the other day.

Today headlines in CM prattle on about “heat and showers finally arrive”; I don’t think so, nice 29/30C with a nice cooling breeze and 100% clear sky. Kinda normal.

As an old yachtie, I can do better 2-3 day forecasts by looking at the cloud formations and the pressure charts.

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  Jazza
  
  January 8, 2012 at 10:10 am
  
  That is exactly what I comment often–the boffins at the BOM can’t give us a reliable forecast day to day most nights of the year, yet we are supposed to accept that climate ins and outs are well known to similar boffins with their own home made climate MODELS,and decimate our economy on their say so?
  
  BS!
  And costlier than any bovine excrement just to please Bob and his sycophants like the awful Milne , the dangerous Rhiannon and the nincompoop Shy Hyphen!!
  
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pat

January 6, 2012 at 3:54 pm

have added the following when posting the Climate Progress piece on Bishop Hill:

the US obsession with blaming the Right for lack of action on CAGW is hilarious. Europe is the only horse in the CAGW race right now, yet its Govts are almost entirely rightwing.

would Gleick like to explain why not one memberof Europe’s sitting rightwing Govts have even uttered the word “CLIMATEGATE”, much less suggested it’s all a scam?

18 Nov: Globe & Mail: Map: Europe’s shift from leftist to right-wing governments
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/map-europes-shift-from-leftist-to-right-wing-governments/article2242058/

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elsie

January 6, 2012 at 4:20 pm

Received my January 9 TIME magazine. There is a feature about 12 disastrous weather events in USA during 2011. One page supposedly tells us what we fear and don’t fear in general terms. e.g. flying is a big fear but, as anyone could tell you, there is more chance of death on the way to the airport than in the plane.

Ok, so far. But then the ‘graph’ shows what is really dangerous. You guessed it…global warming. There is the usual picture of a Polar bear. Underneath it quotes,”a well-funded p.r. blitz can’t obscure mounting scientific evidence that it’s real.” It rates along with the fear of heart attacks.

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  Jazza
  
  January 8, 2012 at 10:14 am
  
  I don’t fear it, and I’m going to holiday north later this year,flying from my southern climes, and I’ll bet those IPCC idiots any money I don’t die from about 10 degrees extra warmth some days!
  
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Hasbeen

January 6, 2012 at 5:17 pm

Hi Tony, Bruce & I were both members of the Neptune Racing team in the early/mid 60s.

We had a great dice in the 68 Bathurst 500 [miles] in the 327 Monaros, for about 40 laps, but then my exhaust came adrift. I had to come in to get it fixed, & he got away from me.

No safety cars in those days to let you catch up for free. Got to within about 30 seconds I think it was, but not enough. Only needed another couple of laps & he would have had to stop for fuel splash & dash. Still that’s motor racing, & why he won it, & I came second.

One advantage of Mount Panorama, no global warming, or any other warming up there. It’s always freezing, unlike Adelaide.

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  TonyfromOz
  
  January 6, 2012 at 6:56 pm
  
  Thanks, er, P**l,
  you have no idea how much sleuthing that took, all resulting from a hunch!
  
  Nice racing car, that BT23.
  
  Still, second in those very first ‘Factory’ 327’s was a pretty mean achievement, especially in those days when Mount Panorama was just that, a mountain.
  
  Bruce took sharing the driving to extremes. Barry would have lived off that win for years, even if he did only drive one lap, and use ‘road’ tyres.
  
  The rest of you readers, sorry to go off topic.
  
  Tony.
  
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    Hasbeen
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:16 pm
    
    We all did back then. I was driving with a pretty good Kiwi, but he didn’t like the Monaros brakes. All he did was the 10 laps, to get us back to our fuel stop window, after my exhaust problem stop. A few others did something similar.
    
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      brc
      
      January 7, 2012 at 8:46 am
      
      Now Hasbeen – Wiki tells me of a bit of drama and intrigue for the 68 Bathurst, where second place was DQ for illegal engine modifications? Was that you?
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Hardie-Ferodo_500
      
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        Hasbeen
        
        January 7, 2012 at 9:28 am
        
        No brc, That was Des & he was between Bruce & me.
        
        They had discovered the replacement heads, from GM had bigger valves, & gave a little more power, so thought they’d pull a swift one, by fitting a couple. They had misread the word Original.
        
        Most of us were paranoid about that originality thing. The 327s had a center console glove box, lined with black carpet.
        
        No water supply for drivers back then, we carried a few Granny Smith apples for mouth freshening. That black carpet put fluff all over the bitten part of an apple returned to the box for future use. We were all so worried about originality, we weren’t prepared to take that carpet out, & drop it on the floor, so only got a few bites from each apple.
        
        At about 100 laps many had some well chewed, & carpeted apples, & most were driving very gently, trying to make the finish. To relieve the boredom, someone threw an apple core at someone else, & the “great apple fight of 68” was on. It lasted about 10 laps, until we’d run out of ammunition, but it sure brightened up a dull phase of the race.
        
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        brc
        
        January 7, 2012 at 9:14 pm
        
        Fantastic bit of racing history, thanks for sharing. It’s unbelievable to think what motor racing has become now. Sometimes I wonder if it has really improved. But I guess they still get up to pranks and fun nowadays, you just don’t get to see it.
        
        Of course given all the clues we can now reverse engineer your identity, but I’ll leave that for another day!
        
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Andrew McRae

January 6, 2012 at 5:21 pm

What recourse do we actually have when exaggerations like this are outed?

eg- More “acidification” coral doom announced in this press release. One Reddit user “rcglinsk” made a interesting remark about the extent of spin.

I recently emailed ABC News Watch with my observation that the “Competition and Consumer Act 2010” makes Information Providers exempt from the general business requirement to avoid misleading or deceptive conduct! I can understand how TV stations can’t be liable for everything they broadcast, just like ISPs and bloggers should not be liable for misleading statements submitted by users, there is just too much of it and they didn’t create it anyway. But there is no “exception to the exception” in the law to require information providers to be fair and honest with “informative information” (eg news) they themselves produced!

How on earth the average person is supposed to make a properly informed decision in today’s world – in spite of vast quantities of information being easily available – seems an unsolved problem.

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  John Brookes
  
  January 6, 2012 at 5:37 pm
  
  Misleading or deceptive conduct? Well there go all the weight loss programmes…
  
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    memoryvault
    
    January 6, 2012 at 6:11 pm
    
    I don’t think advertisers have too much to worry about.
    
    Not in a country where “An Inconvenient Truth” continues to be shown in schools as a “factual documentary” to impressionable children.
    
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      Andrew McRae
      
      January 7, 2012 at 5:00 pm
      
      Great, a new stolen generation. They don’t still play that broken hockey stick in schools here, do they!?? Some future minister for education will have to say sorry for that.
      
      The most appropriate part of AIC was when the Goreacle quoted Mark Twain’s advice:
      “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
      
      Advice Al rejected.
      
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    Andrew McRae
    
    January 6, 2012 at 6:35 pm
    
    Fair point.
    Insurance adverts always carry the disclaimer that you should read their PDS.
    Weight loss programme advertisements should include the statement “Information in this commercial is generic in nature and does not take into account your own personal gut fauna, metabolism, and genotype. Please wait until 2025 when medicine tailored to individual proteomes is available.”
    
    Based on information in the prestigious scientific publication Kruszelnicki K, “Dr Karl’s Brain Food : A delicious blend of finger-lickin’ science with tasty chunks of brain-boosting goodness” 2011, I advance the following hypothesis.
    
    Gut microbes become more efficient at extracting energy from your food on your behalf the more obese you are. Conversely that’s also why as you lose weight it becomes progressively easier to lose weight faster. Dr Karl says this doesn’t make any evolutionary sense for efficiency to kick in when it is least needed. I take a broader view of the relevant host’s evolutionary environment and respectfully disagree.
    
    When living on the savannah, the way humans hunt meat is to outrun their prey in an endurance race, so skinny marathon runners are selected for in that case. Fat humans are selected against because they can’t run away from predators or enemy tribes as quickly. However once a person is fat enough to be the slowest one that will be caught, it would be helpful for the survivors if the predator got a decent feed from the one they caught and thus didn’t have to hunt the survivors again for some significant recuperation time. So once you’ve already piled on the pudding and the thunder thighs it makes perfect evolutionary sense for the species to continue to turn you into a generous serving for predation.
    Now the PR headline: Fat people were the original social security!
    
    You have not heard that hypothesis anywhere else because I just thought of it, it’s a JoNova exclusive! As to my hypothesis being an evolutionary “just-so story” devoid of evidence, there’s been a lot of evolutionary explanations popularised on little more than their internal consistency, so I don’t think the lack of evidence will hold this one back either.
    
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nano pope

January 6, 2012 at 6:04 pm

As an Adelaide resident I can tell you that 38.0C is a relatively mild summer day, and heatwaves usually last weeks above this temp, not just a few days. As someone who has analysed our ~150 years of rainfall records it’s not the heatwaves that worry me, it’s the fact we’ve gone 120 years without a hundred year flood event. Most of our city is built on a giant floodplain that will be devestated. We are well defended against the annual heat but have very little capacity to endure a massive flood event.

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  MattB
  
  January 6, 2012 at 6:11 pm
  
  If you read my link below you’ll find “Consider that prior to 2008, the record length for an Adelaide heat wave in any month was 8 days (all occurring in summer).” where a heatwave is days above 35C. So in short, despite living in adelaide, yout statement “heatwaves usually last weeks above this temp (38.0C)” is incorrect.
  
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    Otter
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:11 pm
    
    So you know better than a person who lives there, and does research on the weather?
    
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      MattB
      
      January 7, 2012 at 9:29 am
      
      It would appear so. I quote from Ian Hill’s piece at the top:
      “The longest heatwave was in March 2008 where there were 12 consecutive days above 38 degrees C.”
      
      compared with nano pope’s claim:
      
      “38.0C is a relatively mild summer day, and heatwaves usually last weeks above this temp”
      
      And March 2008 smashed the records.
      
      So regardless of your views of climate change, or the price of bread, nano pope’s claim is false regardless of where he lives.
      
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      nano pope
      
      January 8, 2012 at 4:20 am
      
      Well yeah, Matt was right for once, I was talking anecdotally while he quoted the technically correct facts. Apart from being slightly too pedantic he was spot on. Still, my anecdote from living here is that I would never accept a series of days that didn’t crack 40C as hot, let alone a heatwave. Technically Matt is correct, but I think this is part of my lack of fear of the oncoming warmist catastrophe, dealing with excessive heat is routine for me. It’s hard to scare someone who has lived through 45 degree days and 38 degree nights into thinking that heat is a dangerous problem. As long as you have water and shade that is. So yeah, I was speaking anecdotaly not scientificaly, and Matt is right to correct me although way off in his interpretation.
      
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MattB

January 6, 2012 at 6:08 pm

Here’s a good blog piece on adelaide heat waves: http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/14/three-record-heatwaves-seaust/

Which of course will not go down well here as it includes sentences such as:

“Statistically speaking, it’s astronomically unlikely that such a sequence of rare heat waves would occur by chance, if the climate wasn’t warming. But of course, it is.”

and

“Time for some context. The closest Adelaide has ever come to a spring heat wave was 4 days in a row 1894. This month’s event will double that — a doubling like this is not twice as unlikely, it’s orders of magnitude more unlikely. Consider that in prior to 2008, the record length for an Adelaide heat wave in any month was 8 days (all occurring in summer). Now, in the space of less than 2 years, we’ve had a 15 day event in Mar 2008 (a 1 in 3000 year event), a 9 day sequence in Jan/Feb 2009 (which included 8 days above 40°C and 13 consecutive days above 33°C), and now, another 8 day event in Nov 2009.”

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  memoryvault
  
  January 6, 2012 at 6:24 pm
  
  THAT is not a heat-wave.
  
  THIS is a heat-wave.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Bar,_Western_Australia
  
  Pity for you cultists that it occurred back in the summer of 1923 – 24.
  
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    MattB
    
    January 6, 2012 at 6:52 pm
    
    There are good reasons only 194 people live in Marble Bar.
    
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      memoryvault
      
      January 6, 2012 at 7:34 pm
      
      Yeah, there’s absolutely bloody nothing there.
      
      I speak from experience: I lived in Marble Bar as part of an aerial photography team a long time ago (like, as measured in several decades).
      
      Even played in the local football match on Sundays.
      Whites versus indigenous (a sort-of ongoing grudge match), played on a gravel oval, with the “water boys” carrying jugs drawn from an 18 gallon keg of the Swan Brewery’s finest.
      
      Severe gravel rash was a ‘given’ and broken bones were not uncommon.
      The front bar of the Ironclad Hotel was the medivac centre.
      
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        Andrew McRae
        
        January 6, 2012 at 7:49 pm
        
        So you see that only confirms that Marble Bar experienced man-made climate change.
        
        After the peak population of 5000 people in 1890 the number of bare white backs dwindled and reduced the amount of sunlight reflected back into space and so heated the land.
        See there is always a way!
        
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        Kevin Moore
        
        January 7, 2012 at 7:32 am
        
        memoryvault
        
        Were you involved with the Armies ‘Kangaroo 83’ exercise?
        
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  brc
  
  January 6, 2012 at 7:51 pm
  
  But ‘we’ aren’t arguing that the climate hasn’t warmed – of course it has.
  
  What is statistically astronomically unlikely is that co2 output from power stations caused the consecutive heatwaves. What is statistically impossible is that implementing a carbon tax in Australia and building windmills and dinky toy solar stations will change the intensity or duration of any future heatwaves.
  
  As always, ‘you lot’ come at the argument from completely the wrong viewpoint.
  
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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 8:08 pm
  
  Here’s another goodie for you Matt. Adelaide’s earliest recorded Spring “ton” advanced by over two weeks when it was 37.9C on October 12, 2006. Surprised the life out of everyone who planned to be outdoors that day. From memory the forecast high was about 33 degrees. Did it catch on? No, highest October maximum since has been 34.9C.
  
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  Otter
  
  January 6, 2012 at 8:12 pm
  
  1894? So it has taken 117 years for the Earth to grow warm enough to beat that record, and it hasn’t YET?
  
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markus

January 6, 2012 at 6:11 pm

Cool. I would have lived through, on average, 36.5 heat waves if I had lived in Adelaide.

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markus

January 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm

Reported heat waves
3 in 1898
3 in 1908
3 in 1910
3 in 1930
All other years had only 1 or 2
11 between 1944 and 1988
32 from 1888 till 1921, the first 33 year period
20 from 1989 till 2012, the last 33 year period, although 2012 is only just starting, is it likely that Adelaide will get another 13 heat waves to break the record

Bugger, I’m rather disappointed there is no correlation with increase atmospheric Co2 saturation and heat waves.

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warcroft

January 6, 2012 at 7:54 pm

Heat waves were awesome as a kid! Got to go home from school at 2pm! They were the best school days ever!

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  John Brookes
  
  January 6, 2012 at 8:11 pm
  
  You lucky, lucky bastard! They always promised us school would be cancelled if it got too hot, but no matter how hot it was, school was always on…
  
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    Otter
    
    January 6, 2012 at 8:14 pm
    
    They won’t cancel in Hell, either.
    
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    warcroft
    
    January 6, 2012 at 9:16 pm
    
    I was born and raised in Adelaide. Lived there until I was 14. I remember it always being hot. Scorching summers. Days over 36 got to go home early from school.
    Then my family moved to Alice Springs. Lived there for five years. Now that was hot! But after a year it was bearable. I was wearing jeans on 35+ degree days.
    Then I moved back to Adelaide for a few years and it was noticeably cooler. . . because Id been living in Alice.
    I remember calling a guy around to fix my central heating because I didnt think it was working. Wasnt putting out enough heat. Mind you, it was early to mid 20’s outside, I had the central heating on full and I was still cold.
    My body was all out of whack.
    Been living in Melbourne for about 15 years now. Ill comfortably wear shorts in 20 degrees.
    
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    brc
    
    January 7, 2012 at 8:48 am
    
    The stupid thing is : we have the technology to keep school in, and keep the kids attentive.
    
    It’s called ‘air conditioning’.
    
    The fact is the recent complete waste of money for school halls could have been put towards air conditioning for schools in hot climates (which covers most of them).
    
    But that wouldn’t have had any Gaia-chops, so they built outdoor shade covers instead.
    
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      TonyfromOz
      
      January 7, 2012 at 10:58 am
      
      brc.
      you say:
      
      The stupid thing is : we have the technology to keep school in, and keep the kids attentive.
      
      It’s called ‘air conditioning’.
      
      I agree totally with that.
      
      However, some here would argue against air conditioning, in fact, wishing it could be banned, as shown at this link here to a Comment at Joanne’s site.
      
      Just scroll down a little for my reply.
      
      The general populace are largely uninformed when it comes to thinking on air conditioning, and even Mar’n Ferguson comments against its use at the residential level in the current Draft Energy White Paper.
      
      While the main complaint is about its use in Summer, those same air conditioning units are used for heating in the Winter, and as even those from the left who rail against the use of air conditioning say themselves, THE single most efficient method used for space heating is in fact reverse cycle air conditioning in the heating mode.
      
      It seems air conditioning is OK in one application but anathema in the other.
      
      This is most graphically seen with this simple, much maligned and often dismissed diagram that most Government’s, and warmists would prefer you not to see.
      
      Electricity Consumption Load Curve (and perhaps the Moderators might place that image in this Comment here, or if not, readers can right click and open it in a new tab.)
      
      See the orange (summer) load consumption where it reaches its peak around the middle of the day. Well that peak includes the addition of residential air conditioning, hence the quote that it is such a problem, but what needs to be realised here is that even under maximum usage rates, residential air conditioning only consumes just less than 0.4% of all consumed electrical power in Australia.
      
      Those same people railing against its use say it adds (considerably is most often added here) to the emissions of CO2 because large scale plants emit more, again, a total misunderstanding of the way electrical power is consumed, and, more importantly, how it is being generated.
      
      See also the Winter peaks, at a different time here, and (er coincidentally) around the time people come home from work and turn on their heating at home, and cook, and do the household chores like clothes washing and drying etc. That peak is almost as high as the Summer peak and it seems that air conditioning in Summer is the boogey man they would like to blame for that.
      
      Those large scale plants, all of them here in Oz coal fired, hum along at the same rate all the time, supplying what they always do. The are not there to (somehow) work harder if demand increases. They just supply what they always do, and that is what you see below that dark line across the page on that chart, the absolute Base Load requirement for power 24/7/365.
      
      Everything above the line is (in the main) Peaking Power, when other smaller units come on line for small periods of time to ‘top up’ the grid. They (in the main Natural Gas Fired plants) may also emit CO2 but only at a third of the rate for coal fired power and for much less time, so CO2 emissions are not huge here when you consider that the Power has to be made available anyway.
      
      Now power is NOT supplied using the principle that as demand rises then more plants come on line to supply it.
      
      The power is always there at the grid. That can be seen by an (imaginary) line across the top of that chart. That is the total that is always there. (well in actual fact that imaginary line would follow both Summer and Winter’s curves, only a little above both of them) The Power is there, always ready for consumption at the grids, and is then drawn down from that overall total being generated.
      
      That upper curve in the middle of the Summer graph is what is attributed to residential air conditioning. (And what easier guilt trip target is there than you personal ‘plebs’ in your homes, tut tut tut!)
      
      However, and referring back to my reply comment above, air conditioning is used in so many places, and schools are just another of them that should be included.
      
      Think stinking hot days and see how many people are in shopping malls, especially those older folk. They’re not there to buy ‘stuff’. They are there to get out of the heat.
      
      This ‘argument’ from the government and the warmists also that air conditioning is the root cause of added CO2 emissions is a distraction. All they are seeking to do is to not spend money on further infrastructure to construct more power plants to supply the power needed for an ever increasing population.
      
      Air conditioning in Summer, and reverse cycle space heating in Winter is not an ‘added luxury’ that supposedly ‘hurts us all’.
      
      If it’s OK in every one of those large buildings (a requirement for breathing air) in hospitals in shopping malls, in every aspect of daily life outside of the home, why is suddenly not OK at homes, and also in Schools for our children.
      
      It seems heat waves are a terrible thing, not for how it affects people but instead that it somehow increases CO2 emissions indirectly.
      
      Tony.
      
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        John Brookes
        
        January 7, 2012 at 4:40 pm
        
        Tony, just a question about:
        
        that even under maximum usage rates, residential air conditioning only consumes just less than 0.4% of all consumed electrical power in Australia.
        
        I’m sure you are correct on this, but maybe help me understand a bit. I’ve lived in houses with reverse cycle airconditioning, and in summer, the power bils went through the roof. How can it be that this big increase in individual power usage (and it was big, even averaged over the whole of summer) can only be 0.4% of the total consumed?
        
        The only way I can reconcile this is if domestic use is dwarfed by commercial/industrial use.
        
        Looking at it another way, turning on a 2 KW air conditioner would more than double the power use in an average home. Since you say this is 0.4% of total power usage, and if we assume that 30% of all houses have refrigerated air conditioning, then it follows that total domestic power use is under 2% of total power use in Australia.
        
        This just seems unlikely to me.
        
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        TonyfromOz
        
        January 7, 2012 at 5:41 pm
        
        John,
        fair question.
        
        I’ve lived in houses with reverse cycle airconditioning, and in summer, the power bills went through the roof. How can it be that this big increase in individual power usage (and it was big, even averaged over the whole of summer) can only be 0.4% of the total consumed?
        
        Some of my comments are already quite long, so extra information, and people would just not read them.
        
        As I explained in the earlier comment (linked to) this is for ‘residential’ air conditioning at the household level only.
        
        The number of homes in the WHOLE of Australia, their use of air conditioning and that the residential sector only consuming 38% of all generated power, so it’s a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, and it comes to 0.4% Australia wide.
        
        It’s a logical thing to think of your electrical power bill just for the Summer, and, even with the correct usage of that air conditioning, (and the vast percentage of people who have home units use them incorrectly) then the 90 day bill for that period would note a large increase.
        
        However, extrapolated out over the whole year, (as per that 0.4% figure I have used) then the cost for air conditioning is indeed relatively small, as it is not used at all in the benign Season’s Months, and not very often used as a ‘heat pump’ in the Winter.
        
        As to your mention of doubling the power bill, I would caution against going that far.
        
        Tony.
        
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        TonyfromOz
        
        January 7, 2012 at 6:05 pm
        
        Further to this, and rather than make one comment overly large, the correct usage of air conditioning is WIDELY misunderstood, and perpetuated by those stupid Government TV ads in Queensland especially.
        
        You need to understand that air conditioning is not cooling the area per se, but is actually removing the heat form the room.
        
        Semantics you may say, but the correct interpretation of what it is actually doing.
        
        Even now, when I talk about it with friends, they tell me that they only turn it on when the heat becomes ‘over the top’ which is the absolute worst time to turn it on.
        
        The unit must be specifically used with respect to the volume it is catering for, another place where people fall down, again, something perpetuated by the Harvey Norman’s of advertising, and I only use their name as indicative of all of them.
        
        Too many people purchase air con units with respect to their wallets, and not wrt an understanding of what is happening.
        
        Any unit even a small amount undersized for the volume is in fact a waste of money.
        
        The unit itself cycles around two temperatures, and those temperatures are set by you when you select the temperature you want for inside.
        
        Your setting becomes the low temp setting, and the automatic setting is three/four degrees higher than that.
        
        When you turn the unit on, the fan sucks out the hot air from the room, and sucks in the air from outside. That outside air passes over the heat exchanger, (like a car radiator) and the cool air enters the room.
        
        The biggest user of electricity is the large electric motor running the compressor.
        
        When turned on, that compressor runs until the lower temp is reached. (your setting)
        
        The compressor then turns off and all that runs is the fan circulating the air throughout the room.
        
        As the room gradually heats, it reaches the upper temp, and the compressor cuts back in, and runs until the room is back at the low setting, continuously cycling.
        
        In reality, you should turn the air conditioning on first thing after you wake, when it’s cool(ish) What happens then is that the room is already close to the low setting, and the compressor cycles for ten minutes or so, on and off throughout the day.
        
        Wait until the ambient is almost unbearable, say mid to high 30’s and it’s too late then. You turn it on and the compressor runs flat out, probably for hours depending on the unit size, thus consuming vast amounts of electricity, trying hard to reach your low temp setting. if it ever achieves that at all.
        
        Now exigencies mean that some people arrive home from work in the heat, and then turn it on.
        
        At times like this, the inside of the house is really hot. Open the windows and doors, and run the unit on fan only for say a quarter/half hour. Then, close all the windows and doors and run the unit onto cool. This way, the unit compressor will not be working overtime, if you can see that.
        
        Close the doors of rooms not in regular use as well, as that volume also adds to the ‘space’ the unit is trying to ‘cool’.
        
        Also, have the louvres on the front blowing the air out as far in the up position as you can get them, because the cool air blows out at the top of the room, and falls displacing the hot air which rises. This may seem a stupid thing to say, but you would be surprised how many people don’t realise this.
        
        So, for efficient running of any aircon unit, there are numerous factors that need to be taken into account.
        
        In the Winter, the reverse applies, and you are setting the upper temp.
        
        Buying a small unit and expecting it to do your whole open plan house is in fact, not only a waste of money, but it ends up costing you a fortune in extra power costs.
        
        Long response I know, but so many people are so misinformed when it comes to residential air conditioning.
        
        Tony.
        
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        TonyfromOz
        
        January 7, 2012 at 6:58 pm
        
        Also, and I’m probably becoming boring right about now, that temperature setting you make in Summer is also quite crucial.
        
        You may notice I mentioned that the temp cycles around your setting and the upper setting, so the unit just cycles.
        
        Yes, it does.
        
        However, make your setting too low, and then that compares with the ambient, (outside) temp.
        
        Set the unit too low, and no matter how good your house insulation, walls, windows etc may be, that outside heat will still warm up the inside of the house, and set too low, then when the unit compressor turns off, the room will heat up from that outside temp, and because of that, the compressor turns on more frequently, again, defeating the purpose, and resulting in increased electricity costs.
        
        24 or 25 is actually ideal.
        
        Tony.
        
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        brc
        
        January 7, 2012 at 9:06 pm
        
        Tony – following up on your air-con comments.
        
        I installed a ducted system which has a 12kw compressor. It is a zoned system so rooms can be shut off, and I installed cavity sliding doors so the house can be portioned up as well. The roof is fully insulated and there are weather sealers under the doors. I already do everything you have said – decide if it’s going to get hot, and get it running early. It hums away most of the day cycling on and off (a modern DC inverter unit) and keeping the house at a good temp, usually 25 or 26 deg.
        
        This costs in summer about $1-2 per day in electricity costs. Less than a latte from my local coffee shop.
        
        I know people with 3kw wall-mounted split systems who belt the hell out of them all day long, never get the house cool and then freak out at the power bill. All because they bought from an idiot in Harvey Norman on a hot day, instead of getting a proper assessment of their needs by a professional.
        
        During summer I get to pleasantly decide whether I’m going to go out and enjoy the steaming weather or sit inside in comfort. Isn’t technology great?
        
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        John Brookes
        
        January 8, 2012 at 7:57 pm
        
        brc, you closet environmentalist you!
        
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Winston

January 6, 2012 at 8:23 pm

Having experienced extremes of either end of the temperature scale, by far the most dangerous and unpleasant is extreme cold, not hot weather. When I lived in Canada as a 12 year old in the mid 70s, I delivered papers at 5 a.m every day, with one particular occasion where temperatures plummeted to -30 deg C, -60 C with the wind chill factor. I thought I would die in that blizzard, and it left an indelible impression upon me that life in the Northern Hemisphere winters without the benefit of heating and cheap fuel would be a deplorable situation, with inevitable fatalities amongst even the most robust individuals. In the heat waves, swimming in the ocean, sitting in the shade and keeping well hydrated are far easier to achieve than getting the circulation back in frostbitten fingers and toes.

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memoryvault

January 6, 2012 at 8:39 pm

Can we just clear up something that relates to MattB’s comments and link in an earlier post regarding the definition of a “heatwave”:

Back in the “good old days”, a heatwave was defined as ” X days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit”.
100 degrees Fahrenheit is 37.8 degrees Celsius.

Sometime after metrication somebody (presumably the BoM) “rounded down” 37.8 degrees Celsius to 35 degrees Celsius for the purpose of defining heatwaves.

35 degrees Celsius is only 95 degrees Fahrenheit, five degrees short of the original, magic “ton”.

This means a lot of periods that now qualify as a “heatwave” under the reduced temperature definition, wouldn’t have cracked a mention back in the “old days”.

Chuck on top of that in the original definition “X” = eight days (a week plus a day), and now “X” equals only three days, and you can easily see why we have had a statistical “increase” in official heatwaves.

It’s all in the numbers folks – and who gets to manipulate them.

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 6, 2012 at 8:52 pm
  
  When I was a kid doing my own observations I used to define a heatwave as anything above 70F. It was often below that at the bottom end of SA in summer! 🙂
  
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  MattB
  
  January 7, 2012 at 10:11 am
  
  MV while the definition has changed, any analysis of “heatwaves” would apply the definition consistently across the temp record. It is not like there are more “heatwaves” now because the definition has changed from 100F to 35C. That would be absurd.
  
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Baa Humbug

January 6, 2012 at 8:51 pm

There is a simple explanation for the current “heatwave” in Adelaide.

This chart shows the very warm waters off the coast of Adelaide, a city surrounded by deserts.

No matter which way the wind blows, Adelaide gets warm.

Contrastingly, look at the relatively cool sea surface temperatures off the coast of Queensland, explaining the cooler than usual start to summer.

Now, unless someone can claim that CO2 has accumulated around Adelaide to cause the elevated sea surface temperatures, the current heatwave has NOTHING to do with AGW.

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  The Black Adder
  
  January 6, 2012 at 10:38 pm
  
  Nice Chart BH!
  
  The CO2 around Adelaide has a lot to do with Senator Sarah Whatshername, and her loose ablutions… it is typical though, the greens give me the shits too!! 🙁
  
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    Ian Hill
    
    January 7, 2012 at 6:40 am
    
    G’day Black Adder. I can’t reply to your post up at the top. I guess there’s a limit to “replies to replies”! You said:
    
    I remember going to the Adelaide Oval Cricket tests!
    
    My mates at the time with me started the day drinking at the Kent Town Pub before , during and after the days play! I bet that stevenson screen decreased a bit in temp., when we were relieving ourselves after a few pints at the cricket in the afternoon session!
    
    Is that attributed to AGW?
    
    Is Kent Town a realistic representation of South Australia?
    
    So many questions, but little answers from BOM.
    
    That’s no mean feat, attending Adelaide Oval while drinking at the Kent Town pub simultaneously!
    
    The answers to your questions are both “yes” because (1) according to the Greens everything that happens is and (2) Adelaide is touted as Australia’s greenest city, if you believe what’s written on the buses.
    
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      The Black Adder
      
      January 7, 2012 at 9:16 pm
      
      My mistake Ian, I was thinking of the Kent Town, but I believe it was the Queens Head?
      
      It was 20 years ago! My apologies.
      
      Not much Cricket was watched anyway, I enjoy it more now!
      
      ` Adelaide is touted as Australia’s greenest city `
      
      Hmmmm, is that due to the decriminalisation of Dope ?!? 🙂
      
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        Ian Hill
        
        January 7, 2012 at 10:43 pm
        
        Ah, the Queen’s Head. Now that’s doable. Yes, often visited after playing footy in the 70s.
        
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  Andrew McRae
  
  January 7, 2012 at 11:53 pm
  
  Tsk tsk. Didn’t you get the memo? Doctor Jones says we must present a unified view on the cause of recent heat waves.
  Consensus science says only one hypothesis is to be expounded, indeed investigation of only one hypothesis will be funded.
  
  And to have differing views on the operation of the climate… well that would just “look odd”.
  
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David

January 6, 2012 at 11:28 pm

How very DARE anyone give examples of heatwaves in Adelaide in the 1880’s and 1900’s..!
Everyone KNOWS that the earth’s climate only started in 1985..!!

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Cookster

January 7, 2012 at 2:17 am

OT, WOW China has just announced plans to introduce a tax on CO2 emissions by 2015 at …. wait for it …. $1.55 / tonne!

Yet the story also mentions China will increase the tax gradually and the rate of tax will be linked to China’s economic growth. Lower growth = less or delayed tax. Unfortunately no plans to delay Australia’s tax should economic conditions deteriorate.

Trouble is we are already seeing the predictable spin and posturing from the Australian government that this somehow justifies Australia’s legislated tax to commence on July 1 of $23 / tonne. Spare me the agony!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/china-to-tax-carbon-by-2015/story-fn59niix-1226238633181

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  warcroft
  
  January 7, 2012 at 10:00 am
  
  Why are we $23/tonne?
  
  South Africa is currently the world hot spot for mining and resources. Mining companies have their eye on South Africa because of their low wages, employee conditions, etc etc. Cheap labour.
  With the overthrow of Libya the US now have a central base to start overthrowing the nations surrounding Libya. A great majority of the mining companies in Australia will move to South Africa in due time.
  That was the real reason US invaded Libya.
  
  In the mean time, although Australia is rich in resources, we are far too expensive.
  So, the carbon tax will cripple our economy, drive down wages, drive up unemployment and (as the bankers hope) turn us into a cheap labour third world country.
  Our government loves illegal immigrants too. They work for peanuts.
  So in about 30 years, once our economy has collapsed, the bankers and mining companies will move back to Australia and start harvesting resources for much less expense to them.
  
  Oh, and we are going to start (as Julia said) doing our part to help pay off the Euro debt.
  
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    TonyfromOz
    
    January 7, 2012 at 11:10 am
    
    warcroft,
    
    That was the real reason US invaded Libya.
    
    um, might you mention to us just when it was the U.S. invaded Libya.
    
    I thought that what happened there was as a result of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.
    
    The U.S. avoided as much involvement as they could.
    
    Tony.
    
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      warcroft
      
      January 7, 2012 at 11:50 am
      
      US, UN, Global banks. . . all the same kettle of fish.
      The U.S. avoided as much involvement as they could? The US have a massive vested interest in Libya.
      
      The invasion of Libya was about two main objectives: privatizing the national oil company and the state-owned central banking system. The US and British inserted language in the UN resolution that allowed them to freeze the accounts of the nationalized oil company as well as the central bank of Libya.
      
      Before the war was over the CIA backed pro-west opposition took the time to announce that they have formed a new national oil company and central bank. The legal documentation for this action hands over control to multinationals outside Libya.
      
      It has always been about gaining control of the central banking system in Libya. Oil is just a profitable side issue like every other state asset that is waiting in Libya to be privatized and sold off to multinational corporations like Bechtel, GE, and Goldman Sachs. Oil is important and it is certainly a target but it isn’t the driving force behind these global wars for profit. Banking is.
      
      Once the Coalition Provisional Authority took over in Iraq, the second thing they did, after signing a law banning the Baathists and disbanding the military, was to sign over the state-owned central banking system to privately held banking interests, bringing Iraq online with the web of private central banks. That took place the very first day of the CPA’s control of Iraq.
      
      If you control the issuance of money in a country and can turn huge profits while enslaving the population with the debt that it produces, then everything, everything including the oil and everything else, belongs to you.
      
      “You control the debt, you control everything. This is the very nature of banking. To make us all, whether it is a nation or an individual, slaves to debt.” The International
      
      February 26th 2011
      U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order that imposes unilateral sanctions on Libya, saying continued violence and unrest there poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to America’s national security and foreign policy.
      
      August 23, 2011
      WASHINGTON (AFP) – The World Bank said Monday it has been monitoring Libya’s economic situation and would be guided by member countries on resuming its activities with the country.
      
      “Guided by our shareholders, the Bank will reengage with Libya just as soon as we can be helpful in the country’s recovery,” the 187-nation development lender said in an emailed statement.
      
      “For the duration of the conflict to the extent possible we have monitored Libya’s economic situation in coordination with the UN but we have had no staff in Tripoli since earlier on in the year,” it said.
      
      October 20, 2011
      Libya now ‘liberated’: US Senator McCain
      Senator John McCain said Thursday that the death of Moamer Kadhafi marked the end of “the first phase” of Libya’s revolution and called for closer ties between Washington and Tripoli.
      
      December 18, 2011
      TRIPOLI (AFP) – US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Saturday that Tripoli could become an important security partner of Washington as he visited Libya for talks with new regime officials.
      
      “We are and will be your friend and partner,” Panetta said at a news conference with Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib.
      
      “This new and free Libya can become an important security partner of the United States,” he said, adding that Washington was looking forward to building a close partnership.
      
      “We stand ready to offer whatever assistance in the spirit of friendship and a spirit of mutual respect.”
      
      The whole Libya war was a US/UN/Global Bank takeover.
      But mainstream media will tell you it was about overthrowing a corrupt tyrannical leader.
      
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      warcroft
      
      January 7, 2012 at 11:57 am
      
      And have a quick watch of this. . .
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB6MJnzhMYY
      
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    memoryvault
    
    January 7, 2012 at 12:04 pm
    
    So in about 30 years, once our economy has collapsed, the bankers and mining companies will move back to Australia and start harvesting resources for much less expense to them.
    
    Not thirty years, Warcroft – try about five.
    
    The multi-billion iron ore expansion projects being carried by both BHPB and RIO in the Pilbara, are peanuts compared to what they investing elsewhere at the moment – much of it in Africa.
    
    Even more interesting is that these expansions in the Pilbara have been costed on the basis of iron ore selling for HALF its current price by the time they go online in about two to three years.
    
    RIO’s project at Simandou in Guinea will produce as much iron ore as their entire Pilbara operations, while Vale’s mine in the same location will be even bigger.
    
    Labour costs are a relatively minor factor, and being reduced all the time. RIO are currrently prototyping robotic haul trucks and other machinery, and both companies are in the process of moving all the major control functions to capital cities, BHPB to Perth, and RIO to Melbourne.
    
    So, in about two years time, when you see the shots on the TV of the huge stackers stockpiling the ore, or the even bigger reclaimers scooping it up for loading onto the ships, know that they will be driven by a guy or girl in Perth or Melbourne, sitting in front of a bank of computer monitors, operating a little joystick similar to a radio-controlled model car.
    
    Onsite personnel will be limited to construction and maintenance, and Gina Rinehart is leading the push to have even these tasks (especially construction) carried out by Asian contractors with their own staff shipped in.
    
    This a means a huge reduction in onsite personnel, plus all their support function people. That in turn means a huge reduction the number of people returning home from site with large disposable incomes, and buying 50″ LCD TV’s etc from Harvey Norman’s (as an example). That will trickle right through the economy.
    
    It is much the same story with coal, and with shale gas being found everywhere on the planet that anybody cares to look for it, the halcyon days super-profits in gas are almost gone.
    
    Now stick a carbon tax on top of that, a mining super tax on top of that again, and the inevitable power shortages that will hit us with a vengeance over the next three years, making any sort of manufacture nigh-on impossible, and we are well and truly stuffed.
    
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      The Black Adder
      
      January 7, 2012 at 9:26 pm
      
      Geez MV,
      
      I`m on Suicide Watch now LOL 🙂
      
      But It is so true, we are not the Lucky Country anymore.
      
      Ya gotta laugh cos I don`t want to cry!
      
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      Jazza
      
      January 8, 2012 at 10:32 am
      
      Absolutely scary that the average Joe and Joan who rely on the nightly “gospel according to TV’ for their news have no idea of those impacts!
      
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      scaper...
      
      January 8, 2012 at 2:10 pm
      
      A fair summation of the global mining industry but a little lean in my opinion.
      
      I would like to add Mongolia. Due to their mineral wealth. Mongolia has the 11th biggest coal reserves in the world (10,000 years of coal mining). It also has the planet’s second-largest copper reserves after Chile, the world’s second-largest uranium reserves behind Australia as well as significant deposits of gold, lead and zinc. They are strategically placed to supply China and Russia which will not render us uncompetitive but more so in a lowering market price for coal in particular.
      
      What has somewhat slowed the development has been finance (overcome) but a matter of 75mm difference in railway gauges. I am told that this problem has been overcome also.
      
      Then there is the VLOCs (Very Large Ore Carriers 388,000 dwt) that have been ordered by Vale to ship iron ore from Latin America to Asia. This will further erode our geological advantage but in the main will reduce the market price for iron ore.
      
      About seven weeks ago Australian miners were invited to Namibia and have been wooed to set up operations in the country. The advantage being not only the lower labour component but the relatively short period from discovery to extraction due to less red tape which is strangling the miners in Australia.
      
      The high commodity prices are slowly on the wane and in two years there will be no super profits to tax. Oh, by the way…the tax is not law yet and will be challenged in the high court so it is not a given. Far from it in my opinion.
      
      Memoryvault, I take issue with your statement that Gina is pushing for construction to be performed by Asian contractors. Gina has never alluded to that. Maybe you are referring to the ANDEV guest worker initiaive?
      
      If not a link to back up your statement would be appreciated.
      
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  scaper...
  
  January 7, 2012 at 10:51 am
  
  Officials weighing green benefits of carbon taxation.
  
  Anyone want to bet that China will introduce a Carbon Tax in three years? I’m willing to bet they won’t.
  
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    The Black Adder
    
    January 7, 2012 at 9:28 pm
    
    Bingo Scaper!!
    
    They will introduce diddly squat!!
    
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MattB

January 7, 2012 at 10:15 am

Just on hot weather and Adelaide… here is our former PM coping with the heat at the Adelaide test match this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5mBShX9fdU&sns=fb
Bloody legend.

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  Popeye
  
  January 7, 2012 at 10:42 am
  
  MattB says
  
  Hawke a “Bloody legend.” ??
  
  In his own lunchtime (maybe) but absolutely ZERO CLASS!!!
  
  Cheers,
  
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    Wayne, s. Job
    
    January 8, 2012 at 8:01 pm
    
    I had the unfortunate two hours of Hawk in my cockpit on a 727 from Perth not long before he was PM. What he said then and what he did as PM were two different people. A back stabbing opportunist is my proffered description of this person. What has occurred since has not changed my opinion.
    
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  Popeye
  
  January 7, 2012 at 10:44 am
  
  BTW – there hasn’t been an Adelaide test yet – the one you linked to was in Sydney as the clips title says?
  
  Cheers,
  
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    MattB
    
    January 7, 2012 at 11:12 am
    
    whoops sorry. yes indeed SCG test.
    
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    TonyfromOz
    
    January 7, 2012 at 11:18 am
    
    Oh look Popeye, it matters not the least about getting the location right, as that is just incidental, no reason to fact check something like that, it’s just another chance to drool over an idol.
    
    Bloody legend, eh Matt!
    
    And, er, you approve of this example being set by our leaders?
    
    Tony.
    
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      MattB
      
      January 7, 2012 at 11:23 am
      
      settle down Tony – reading about attending the cricket in Adelaide further up the thread crossed my wires. Anyone who doesn’t think that clip is great is a bum.
      
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        TonyfromOz
        
        January 7, 2012 at 1:11 pm
        
        Odd, isn’t it?
        
        When Tony Abbott appears in support of SLSA to publicise the wonderful work that that organisation performs for the Australian public, and he wears the recommended uniform swimming attire, he is suddenly an object of ridicule, and when Bob Hawke does something like this, he’s a ‘bloody legend’.
        
        It seems that hypocrisy knows no bounds, depending on which leader of which political party does it.
        
        Settle down. Really.
        
        Now who is the fundament?
        
        Tony.
        
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        John Brookes
        
        January 7, 2012 at 4:45 pm
        
        Come on MattB, Hawkie was a Labor prime minister, so nothing he does will be good in this universe
        
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      TonyfromOz
      
      January 7, 2012 at 6:27 pm
      
      At one stage in his Oxford days as a Rhodes Scholar, Bob held the record for consuming beer from a yard glass, achieved in just under 11 seconds.
      
      That’s almost one and a half litres, the equivalent of just over 4 Stubbies.
      
      Until you’ve drunk (beer) from a yard glass, you have no concept of what this really means.
      
      When I was promoted to Corporal, my, er, (now) fellow Corporals took me to the Airmans ‘tavern’ at East Sale, and I endured the age old tradition of the yard glass of beer upon promotion, when I was much less than half the age I am now, when something like this was a thing I was not as concerned as I might seem now about such an activity.
      
      It’s not the amount, but the bulb at the bottom of that yard glass, so you need to watch carefully as you consume, otherwise the ‘bulb’ full of beer gives you a face bath if you go too fast.
      
      For Bob to achieve this in 11 seconds is just amazing really.
      
      Now, however, it may be that he has might think about the example it sets to others.
      
      Tony.
      
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        memoryvault
        
        January 7, 2012 at 7:16 pm
        
        Sorry Tony, but simply drinking a yard glass is for wimps.
        
        Back in the early 1970’s when the mine and refinery were being brought online at Gove in the NT, the competition at the Arnhem Club was as follows:
        
        1) – One had to be falling down drunk (in the opinion of the barman) just to be allowed to compete.
        2) – One had to consume six meat pies in under five minutes, sitting at the bar.
        3) – One then had to drink the yard in under twenty seconds.
        
        The competition was not who drank the yard the quickest, but rather who could hold the whole lot down the longest. When I was there in 1974, the record was seven minutes. In my best effort I managed a bit under three minutes. I had several goes in my time there (about a year).
        
        Legend had it that the competition started as friendly rivalry between the services based at Gove during WWII.
        
        That consisted of the Air Force, flying bombers in raids on the Japanese in New Guinea, the Navy which serviced the base for the Catalina flying boats in Melville Bay (refueling stop between Sydney and India), and the Army Engineers who did the heavy lifting for both the Navy and the Air Force.
        
        Legend has it that the Army were the undisputed champions.
        
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        The Black Adder
        
        January 7, 2012 at 9:38 pm
        
        Sorry Tony, but simply drinking a yard glass is for wimps.
        
        I tend to agree MV.
        
        I can remember my 21st and the Funnel with large hose attached brought out to me in the night!
        
        It contained 4 Stubbies of heavies and I sculled it down within 5 seconds.
        
        I vividly remember my Grandma (aged 85) was horrified!
        
        But, I was never a Rhodes Scholar…. sigh…
        
        Bob Hawke is still a loser though.
        
        He said PM Juliar is doing a good job for Christsakes!! WTF !!
        
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        Jazza
        
        January 8, 2012 at 10:42 am
        
        I can recall when all such stupidity was the province of young males who,to paraphrase Confucius , think they know everything at 18,so let the world hit them with the lot.
        
        What an indictment on society that females are now as empty headed at this or similar young ages, apparently believing they should be so “equal” in every way!
        
        Now, I’ve always subscribed to the axiom “viva la difference” not being one of those “emancipated feminists: at all!
        
        Due to this my tales of my youth are pretty tame.
        
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  old44
  
  January 8, 2012 at 5:24 pm
  
  Pity he didn’t demonstrate his other great past-time involving other peoples wives, might have boosted ratings no end.
  
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janama

January 7, 2012 at 10:57 am

Totally OT but interesting.

Have any of you noticed the TV ads for 1millionwomen.com.au – a movement to have 1 million women tackle climate change by lowering their emissions by 1 million tons each.

http://www.1millionwomen.com.au

It was established by Natalie Issacs, mother of 4 and ex CEO of The Natalie Group, a company that produces aromatherapy based cosmetics. She sold the company in 2007 to concentrate on the 1milwim project.

http://www.natskinbody.com/

Her co-founder is Michelle Grosvenor, longtime greenie activist and wife of Paul Gilding, a former head of Greenpeace International (1992-4.)

http://paulgilding.com/who-is-paul/pauls-history

Paul and his wife were also involved in a founding a company called Ecos Corporation from 1995 – 2008 which was a greenie sustainability company advising international corporations etc and they also founded Easy Being Green which employed 200 people – when the NSW State carbon price collapsed so did the companies and easy being green was sold to Jack Green. It still operates today and sells Solar PV systems, Solar hot water and heat pumps.

http://cms.easybeinggreen.com.au/

Paul’s current roles include as a member of the Core Faculty at Cambridge University’s Program for Sustainability Leadership and as Special Advisor on Climate Change to KPMG.

These professional Greenies sure get around.

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  KinkyKeith
  
  January 7, 2012 at 11:21 am
  
  Hi J
  
  I posted on one of Paul Gs bloggs some time ago to get a feel for it.
  
  All luvey-dovey and mutually supportive in the cause.
  
  The whole BUSINESS of being green is enough to make you want to vomit.
  
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  cohenite
  
  January 7, 2012 at 10:01 pm
  
  I have seen the ads; there is absolutely no critical facility in these organisations; the drive, motivation and goals are all emotionally defined; it is a mutual lobotomisation society.
  
  They appear to have a fair way to go with 54,000 signed up so far.
  
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  old44
  
  January 8, 2012 at 4:53 pm
  
  So many grants, so many subsidies, so many lurks, so little time.
  
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kasphar

January 8, 2012 at 11:29 am

In January 1986, Bourke had 22 days in a row of 40C plus weather.
The top temp was 48.6 and the month’s average was just over 43C.
Over 40 people died in that heatwave.
If we had one of that magnitude today, what a field day the press would have.

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  Geoff Brown
  
  January 8, 2012 at 7:37 pm
  
  Kasphsr@42:
  
  I have purloined your post and posted it on the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics blog HERE.
  
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kasphar

January 8, 2012 at 11:31 am

Sorry, 1896 (not 1986). Oops!

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Ken Stewart

January 9, 2012 at 3:46 pm

Gday Ian. Great post. In my splice of Kent Town and West Terrace maxima I warmed West Terrace by +0.12C before 1978. Very little difference.
Just another example of headline seeking.
And hottest year since 1910 was 1917.

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 9, 2012 at 10:45 pm
  
  Thanks Ken and welcome back. Hope you had a good holiday.
  
  0 0
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Adelaide – a decline in extreme heatwaves? « ManicBeancounter

January 10, 2012 at 9:22 am

[…] Nova has posted data from Ian Hill on extreme heatwaves in Adelaide, Australia. To […]

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Manicbeancounter

January 10, 2012 at 9:27 am

I have analysed the data a bit further, splitting the heatwaves into decades. The prediction is that rising temperatures will mean more extreme heatwaves. Adelaide bucks the trend as

1. Last decade, beginning 2000 was no more significant than the decades 1890s, 1900s, or 1930s.
2. The 1990s was no more significant than the decades 1910s and 1920s
3. There is no increasing trend in heatwaves since 1990, just a couple of extreme years in 2008 and 2009.

I have a couple of graphs to illustrate this at http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/01/09/adelaide-a-decline-in-extreme-heatwaves/

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  Ian Hill
  
  January 10, 2012 at 11:00 pm
  
  I’m also interested in looking at the hot days which just missed out on being included as a “heatwave” day because they followed a day of some minor respite, say 35C, eg Jan 12, 1939 which was 47.4, Adelaide’s hottest ever day, OR they barely dipped below 38 and did not qualify eg the two heatwaves of February 1910. The day in between was 37.7.
  
  Getting the overall impression of “hot spells” without the restriction of a threshold temperature will turn it into more than a purely statistical exercise, useful though this has been.
  
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Peter Styles

January 10, 2012 at 3:34 pm

Your weather Herald Sun 8/1/2012 off to a real scorcher.Dr David Jones the Bureau of Meteorology,s leading climatologist says the frequency of heatwaves in Victoria is increasing.The atmosphere is overloaded with carbon dioxide and warming our world.He goes on to say Adelaides New Years day 2012 at 41.6 was the hottest since 1900 at 43.1C.His statement proves carbon dioxide is not guilty of warming our world because in 1900 CO2 in the atmosphere was 300ppm,which has increased 33% to 390ppm in 2011.But it was hotter 112 years ago.The fact that 1998 was the warmest year to date further confirms CO2 is innocent.I think he should be guided by evidence,not spin.

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Joanne Nova

January 10, 2012 at 4:10 pm

UPDATE: Someone has taken this nice data and done good graphs of Adelaide Heatwaves.

Thanks – I see the magic bean counter has already let people know. I put this link into the post 🙂 Thanks!

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MattB

January 24, 2012 at 2:08 pm

Talking about heatwaves Crikey it’s hot here in Perth! 38 today, then 40, 40, 39, 42, 40, 39 and who knows what beyond that.

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Siliggy

August 27, 2012 at 8:50 pm

Probably the most severe heatwaves were in January 1908 where the Adelaide citizens endured a week of temperatures averaging 43.2. Earlier in the month they had six days averaging 41.8.

1858 may be a contender for that too.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/4996634?

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JoNova

Recent Posts

Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter

It’s another mindless record used to remind the public to “keep the faith” and recite the litany:

“Adelaide had it’s hottest start to the year since 1900” Sky news

Heatwaves in Adelaide

162 comments to Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter

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JoNova

Recent Posts

Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter

It’s another mindless record used to remind the public to “keep the faith” and recite the litany:

“Adelaide had it’s hottest start to the year since 1900” Sky news

Heatwaves in Adelaide

162 comments to Ian Hill: There have only been 78 other heatwaves like that in Adelaide… and 51 were hotter

JoNova

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