Gale and fire, red steer loose

A few news items from past times to mull over...

Gale and Fire Nepean Times 13 October 1928 
"Last Sunday was a Black Sunday on the Mountains and in the Nepean district. A fierce gale made havoc with property, and on the Mountains the flames destroyed much property. The whole countryside, from Warrimoo to Lawson, was alight."

Gale and Fire The Queenslander 11 October 1928

"A SCORCHING westerly gale which swept from the inland districts to the coast to-day wrought havoc in many areas. Many houses were unroofed in the suburbs. There were numerous bushfires, one having disastrous consequences. Many reports are to hand of minor damage by the wind. A message from Woy Woy, the popular watering place north of Sydney, states that a fire broke out early in the day enveloped 30 week-end cottages, all of which were destroyed. The damage is estimated at £20,000."

"Red Steer" Loose As Heat Wave Flames The Land 29 October 1948
"THE RED STEER," old bushland name for a bushfire, was loosein the eastern districts of New South Wales in the early part of this week,set free by the hottest October weather in recent years and fanned on its way by scorching westerlies."

Many Bushfires as Heat Sets Four-year Record SMH 28 October 1948
"Most serious outbreak was on the South Coast, where the village of Termeil, 12 miles from Ulladulla, was practically destroyed."

N.S.W. Under Smoke Pall Townsville Daily Bulletin 24 October 1951

"SYDNEY, October 23.— Bushfires are burning in nine State forests in New South Wales.Over 100 separate bushfires were reported during the dayand night.Veteran fire fighters said it was one of the worst days for bushfires in the State's history.The fires extended along the coast from the Shoalhaven and the Tallaganda Shires in the south to the Queensland border. They also raged in the north-west of the State."

Big Losses in Fierce NSW fires The News 24 October 1951

Sydney, Wed.: Bushfires ravaging the northern NSW coast have caused more than £1 million worth of damage. Yesterday fire destroyed, several houses, a sawmill, a banana plantation, a bridge and threatened scores of other dwellings and. several small townships. Police on the north coast said only, a drop in the wind. had averted a "holocaust" today."

BOISTEROUS GALES SWEEP NEW SOUTH WALES BUSH FIRES RAGING Kalgoorlie Miner Tuesday 25 August 1936

"Boisterous gales swept New South Wales to-day, blinding dust storms raged in the inland districts,high seas lashed the coast, and driving rain fell in parts of the southern areas. Gales -are raging over the Tasman Sea, and air services were partially disorganised. The city was encircled by bushfires, outbreaks occurring in practically every suburb. Fences were torn down, trees uprooted, and small buildings unroofed."

More heatwaves to come

ABC state the obvious, yes there will indeed be more heat waves to come. Odd that the study mentioned starts in the 1950s, and does not extend back to the 1930s and 1890s despite good quality meteorological records being available. One supposes ABC based their story on yesterdays high temps. They really need to check the definition of a heat wave before getting carried away. It generally lasts more than 12 hours.

This TEDX presentation by Ivo Vegtar should be required viewing for ABC's alarmist reporters.
Scary bananas: How environmental exaggeration harms emerging economies.

Missing News: explaining the pause

ABC Science recently published a piece by its highly paid in house expert Dr Karl, titled "No Warming in 16 years". Dr Karl essentially denies the evidence for the hiatus in global temps. In contrast a recent peer reviewed paper in the journal Climate Dynamics provides an explanation for the pause. The paper is co-authored by one of ABC's missing voices Dr Judy Curry.
No surprise that ABC have not reported on the paper.

From the Press release:

A new paper published in a recent online edition of the journal Climate Dynamics suggests that this ‘unpredictable climate variability’ behaves in a more predictable way than previously assumed. The paper’s authors, Marcia Wyatt and Judith Curry, point to the so-called ‘stadium-wave’ signal that propagates like the cheer at sporting events whereby sections of sports fans seated in a stadium stand and sit as a ‘wave’ propagates through the audience.  In like manner, the ‘stadium wave’ climate signal propagates across the Northern Hemisphere through a network of ocean, ice, and atmospheric circulation regimes that self-organize into a collective tempo.

The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why climate models did not predict this hiatus. Further, the new hypothesis suggests how long the hiatus might last.   

Climate spin at The Con

ABC's academic arm The Con. have an article by Communications and Media Studies lecturer David Holmes titled: Climate change and the politics of consensus. The article is accompanied by a picture showing what appears to be a group scientists in white coats (see below). Now who could argue with that authority?

A close look at the photo shows the banner was provided by AVAAZ an online activist group. A quick web search reveals a Yahoo news story where we find the "scientists" are actually AVAAZ protesters!

The caption reads: Members of the non-governmental organisation AVAAZ take part in a protest on the side of a giant 12m seesaw, outside the conference centre Munchen brewhouse where the U.N. IPCC climate report was presented. 

http://news.yahoo.com/climate-panel-warming-extremely-likely-man-made-081442244--finance.html

Use of activist propaganda imagery by a tax payer funded site does little for the credibility of The Con, or the author. We made a note and asked some difficult questions. The image preserved at Webcite.

Lightning strikes

ABC's environment site are always quick to highlight extreme weather events and disasters but always seem to fail in putting events into their historical perspective. Sadly this week saw at least 32 people killed in India from lightning strikes. This was in at least two separate strikes.

In 1915 lightning killed at least 34 people in one strike.

More historical tragedies can be found by searching TROVE.

Climate Council's first donation?

Some conflicting reports about where the new Climate Council's first donation came form...

According to the ABC, contenders are as follows....

James in Perth?
'We had our first donation in last night from James in Perth - $15,' Dr Flannery told Breakfast this morning.

or James in New South Wales?
"We had our first donation from James in New South Wales for $15 at midnight," he said at the time.

IPCC hysteria

ABC are offering hysteria and moral indignation in their coverage of the IPCC's latest report. For an adult's perspective see what missing voice Dr Judy Curry has to offer....

IPCC diagnosis – permanent paradigm paralysis

by Judith Curry

Diagnosis: paradigm paralysis, caused by motivated reasoning, oversimplification, and consensus seeking; worsened and made permanent by a vicious positive feedback effect at the climate science-policy interface.

In a previous post, I discussed the IPCC’s diagnosis of a planetary fever and their prescription for planet Earth.  In this post, I provide a diagnosis and prescription for the IPCC

To read the rest follow the link.