Climate change ???

[Moondog55]

It's April, I should have on my long-johns and a jumper and here I am thinking about turning on the airconditioner.
I'm in Geelong and it is 25C in the middle of April
It is just possible that this may be the first year for a very long time that the High Country doesn't get standing snow.
Bye bye skiing in Australia??

[wayno]

yup, should be rather damp by now in NZ, but most farming areas are in drought , it will take 100mm of rain before it ends...
tane mahuta, nz's biggest kauri tree has just had for the first time ever 40,000 litres of water shipped in and sprayed around the roots to keep it alive.
temps are above normal, although come winter theres often more snow because warming conditions mean more moisture in the air and the mountains are still high enough here to sustain the snow at the skifields...
not only has there been little rain its been cloudless skies most days, massive anti cyclones settled over the country...
should be nice and cool by now but when i go for my lunchtime jogs, i'm still sweating away in a singlet. it certainly doesnt feel like mid april...
i feel sorry for aus though with the blazing temps they had over summer i was watching the forecasts when i was over there, it was pretty astounding the heat waves going on. never seen grass bleached so white by drought, saw the shocking fire damage in tasmania, not something you want to have to see again.

[Giddy_up]

The weather sure is mixed up, here on the Sunshine Coast QLD we have had rain that would rival the norths wet season. To give you some idea our average annual rainfall is around 1250mm per annum. We had received that much rain by the end of February, and it has not stopped. We have had another 300mm over the last 10 days and as I look out its pouring. Just does not make sense?


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[wayno]

i read that the locations for rain had changed, south aus's rain apparently is more likely to fall to the south out to sea now...
the west coast of nz south island never has droughts but even their rain has been negligible....

[photohiker]

I think Laverton is the closest station with a good range of data (since 1943):

http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weat ... num=087031

[Giddy_up]

Mount Coolum is just down there, second biggest monolith behind Uluru. Haven't seen it for weeks!!!!!!!


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[wayno]

temp trends in aus

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/c ... ndmaps.cgi

and changes in rainfall

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/c ... eriod=1970

[wayno]

Mount Coolum is just down there, second biggest monolith behind Uluru. Haven't seen it for weeks!!!!!!!

nah, the top of your windows just been sandblasted...

[Giddy_up]

No sand left wayno, have to bring it in by truck now.

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/ne ... h/1798025/


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[photohiker]

i read that the locations for rain had changed, south aus's rain apparently is more likely to fall to the south out to sea now...

We're certainly down on last year. Till end of March: 32.5mm. Same months last year: 80.6mm. I kinda doubt we're going to pick up ~50mm in a couple of weeks. (own weather station).

We had 27.4mm in April last year, so far this month: 2mm !!

BOM says 90.2mm last year and 40.4mm this year till end March for North Adelaide

[Moondog55]

^To me it doesn't feel as if the summers are hotter, but it sure feels as if the winters are much, much warmer [ and drier too] and the lack of rain is much scarier than anything else.
I was hoping we had another decade for government and industry to try and do something and I think it is now too late.
I see a massive problem for my kids now and my grandkids.
Bushfires in April?

[wayno]

actually looks like the rain has gone to the western desert

[Giddy_up]

We are 103 days through the calendar and 65 of those have rained here in SE QLD. That does not include cloudy days with no precipitation and as a result its been very cool temp wise with the cloud cover.


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[north-north-west]

Que? It's still mid-autumn. Autumn weather is often mild. I can recall a few fairly recent autumns where there was no snow until June.

[Hallu]

Well Australia isn't exactly helping prevent climate change, still clinging on coal for electricity, having huge cattle exploitations, hardly any house with thermal isolation (ever heard of double glazed windows...), big boats and 4x4...

[wayno]

lets face it, unless theres more environmental change from asia, the states and europe , what everyone else does is a bit academic....

[mikethepike]

hardly any house with thermal isolation (ever heard of double glazed windows...),

Yes agreed and our house is in part, such a house but we don't do any heating apart from the wood fired kitchen stove and that's only run in the evening. It just isn't cold enough to go to the expense of double glazing etc. I'll put on a extra coat if it's really cold or go to bed early. When I was a kid growing up in Adelaide's western suburbs, the front lawn not uncommonly had mild winter frost and I would go to school breathing dragon's breath - that so used to embarrassed me so much that I would hold my breath if i had to walk past anyone! Those conditions rarely occur now and that's the basis of my main arguments against climate change deniers - if man can change the weather in a small area - ie city limits, and cause polluted skies over vast sections of continents (eg Europe), doesn't this suggest that man's influence might also extend to the whole globe? CFCs also demonstrate that point.

[Hallu]

lets face it, unless theres more environmental change from asia, the states and europe , what everyone else does is a bit academic....

The problem is, although India, China and Vietnam could have the money to still have a powerful yet green economy, they're more leaning toward "you westerners had your nasty dirty planet-destroying industrial revolution, why shouldn't we ?". In terms of environmental measures, Europe is pretty much in the lead... because it's alone. The main problem is, even if Asia and America diminished their greenhouse gases production, deforestation is still going at an appalling rate... Scientists believe forests could actually absorb the excess of CO2 we produce, if we had healthy forests and not stupid fields of palm oil trees... And last but not least, the plankton in the ocean actually absorbs more CO2 than all the forests, but the health of our oceans is also in an appealing state because of us...

Regarding climate change skeptics, you'd really have to be a complete idiot to doubt it (like Claude Allègre, who's a French scientist and was even minister of education, and falsified data to accommodate his own climate change-skeptical opinions...) the facts are here. The cause is debatable though, and the sun activity theory has its merits, although it shouldn't be separated from the influence of green house gases and deforestation, it's not one or the other...

[corvus]

I am having to spend close to $9.000 to lift only one part of my house (extra $18.000 if I do the whole thing ) owing to the ground drying out so in my opinion the climate is getting warmer and this was the hottest summer I have experienced in my 45 years since living in Australia .
Climate change ? yes I believe it is happening .

[doogs]

*phytoplankton, which are plants, plankton are animals. They float on the surface, absorb carbon in the form of CO2, eventually die and then the carbon is carried to the sea floor and locked up in the sediments. It will stay there for a long time, many thousands of years, but eventually it will be reexposed to the atmosphere. Learning to live within our environment is the obvious solution to climate change, but the politics to do it are near impossible.

[Drifting]

the scary thing is that what we are experiencing fits perfectly with the expected results of the worst case scenarios predicted by scientists 10-20 years ago. We left Victoria for this reason- the data I used to make the call to move predicted that Wangaratta was going to have Dubbo's climate by 2050 (or was it 2030?). They have enough issues with bush fires, drought and extreme heat there as it is, without being like Dubbo. This trend is going to repeated throughout most of Australia, with limited exceptions.

Somewhere along the line we all needed to listen to the warnings, but we (collectively speaking) just drowned them out with the sound of our latest IPODs and Gangnam style and SUVs. Now our world will pay for our ignorance, along with all of the innocent organisms that reside here, just trying to pass their lives on to the next generation and survive. As for us--well, we'll just adapt, like we always do.

[wayno]

glaciers are disappearing in nz. older trampers tell of less permanent snow on the mountains
aus can get rid of its coal plants but will they just export the coal like nz instead?

[Earthling]

Queensland seems to be one of the worst affected states in Oz from climate change. All that rain dumped over a short span is going to wipe out communities. I was living in Mitchell QLD last year which had NEVER flooded and last year 80% of the homes were flooded! Year after year some towns in Qld are getting 1 in a 100 year floods...
Ive moved now back to WA's south west, which will get warmer and drier but not flooded. Still eyeing off Tasmania.
Walking the Bibbulmun Track last year there is 1000s of acres of valleys where every plant is either dieing or dead. Especially looking fron Cuthbert and hills surrounding. 1000's of Jarrah, Sheoaks, Redgums trees gone. Talked to DEC and apparently WaterCorp did a study on this and said the water table has dropped as of the continuous dry years in a row.
Its only going to get worse.

[Giddy_up]

Talk is cheap when governments are involved, and even our scientists get it wrong. I remember Professor Tim Flannery writing in the Australian around 2008-9 (after 7 years of drought) saying that Australian water catchments had a high probability of never filling again because of global warming. Subsequently the rains came, the Murray and its catchment flooded, the town of Cooma on top of the great divide had flood water rushing through it, as that water speed toward the Murrumbidgee, as did the northern rivers in that catchment like the Barwon, Namoi, Castlereigh, Balone , Bokhara, and Narran. The channel country ran unprecedented water through the Diamantina and Cooper Creek and filled Lake Ayre and the Tandou Lakes. More fresh water ran out through the Coorong and mouth of the Murray than had been seen since the 60's. Flood waters rushed through Toowoomba on top of the range and Brisbane's water supply which had languished at 5% suddenly filled and then drowned the capital of QLD. Was it reported as a marvel that the salt load had been removed from the Murray and that the riverine ecosystem from the Qld border to the Murray was in a great state, was it reported about the huge gains in our countries GDP because agriculture was back on the front foot with rice, cotton, winter cereals, dairy, and livestock production, was it reported about the huge gains that the water brought for our birds which flocked to the inland lakes to breed in unprecedented numbers or our fish stocks which spawned up and down thousands of kilometres of rivers, no. Why, because it did not suit the political power brokers and their policy.
Just when you think you have "mother nature" in a box, she has that un-canny way of making you look stupid.


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[Hallu]

Well to be fair he didn't say they would never fill again, he just said "high probability"... It's like blaming the weather forecast for being wrong, it's just probabilities. When you're not even sure why there is global climate change, it's hard to predict it...

[Giddy_up]

That's true Hallu, but what is said is very often assumed as being absolute, especially when it comes from someone whom Mr Average believes is quite infallible, and the media is always very good at taking a quote and turning it into hysteria, not that I think climate change is hysteria.
I pose a question to you. " If we could stop all the things that are reported to cause global warming would the current temperature range stay static".
I will also answer it for you, no. It would continue to increase because earth is very slowly moving towards the sun and the sun is gradually expanding and becoming hotter until it explodes, supernova style "bang".This is happening every day and is very subtle, but it is happening!!!!!!!!!


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[Strider]

Talk is cheap when governments are involved, and even our scientists get it wrong. I remember Professor Tim Flannery writing in the Australian around 2008-9 (after 7 years of drought) saying that Australian water catchments had a high probability of never filling again because of global warming. Subsequently the rains came, the Murray and its catchment flooded, the town of Cooma on top of the great divide had flood water rushing through it, as that water speed toward the Murrumbidgee, as did the northern rivers in that catchment like the Barwon, Namoi, Castlereigh, Balone , Bokhara, and Narran. The channel country ran unprecedented water through the Diamantina and Cooper Creek and filled Lake Ayre and the Tandou Lakes. More fresh water ran out through the Coorong and mouth of the Murray than had been seen since the 60's. Flood waters rushed through Toowoomba on top of the range and Brisbane's water supply which had languished at 5% suddenly filled and then drowned the capital of QLD. Was it reported as a marvel that the salt load had been removed from the Murray and that the riverine ecosystem from the Qld border to the Murray was in a great state, was it reported about the huge gains in our countries GDP because agriculture was back on the front foot with rice, cotton, winter cereals, dairy, and livestock production, was it reported about the huge gains that the water brought for our birds which flocked to the inland lakes to breed in unprecedented numbers or our fish stocks which spawned up and down thousands of kilometres of rivers, no. Why, because it did not suit the political power brokers and their policy.
Just when you think you have "mother nature" in a box, she has that un-canny way of making you look stupid.


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High probability does not mean zero probability.

NEVER assume anything.

[Giddy_up]

No, quite correct. But I'm sure you would agree that all arguments need balance and as I have just pointed out, that balance does not get reported as Mother Nature correcting some long over due issues. What does happen is the media reports natural disaster, but was it that much of a disaster that all the rivers on the eastern seaboard ran!!!!!!!
I would suggest not.
I will open a can of worms here for sure, but happy to be the "devil" on this.
Who uses more water, the rice grower in the Riverina or the housewife that cooks it?


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[Hallu]

That's true Hallu, but what is said is very often assumed as being absolute, especially when it comes from someone whom Mr Average believes is quite infallible, and the media is always very good at taking a quote and turning it into hysteria, not that I think climate change is hysteria.
I pose a question to you. " If we could stop all the things that are reported to cause global warming would the current temperature range stay static".
I will also answer it for you, no. It would continue to increase because earth is very slowly moving towards the sun and the sun is gradually expanding and becoming hotter until it explodes, supernova style "bang".This is happening every day and is very subtle, but it is happening!!!!!!!!!


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OK the first part made sense, the last is a bit over the top... Don't mix everything up, especially with different time scales. We're talking billions of years before the sun explodes. With that kind of global warming, life on Earth would have more than enough time to adapt to those conditions. The problem is fast global warming, and Aussies should know, with the precious great barrier reef dying very rapidly. Corals and more generally plants and animals can't cope with such fast changing conditions.

[Giddy_up]

Why can't animals adapt!!!!!! They already are, and don't think for a minute that natural selection is not taking place right now. Extinction is part of the ebb and flow, yes we may well be advancing it but don't under sell the capacity of a wild animal to adapt. It's us that won't adapt, flushing toilets, dishwashers, computers, paper. We just won't go without. I also believe that if you don't have any skin in the game you don't get a seat at the table. I have invested my business life to being sustainable but I also have bet that greed and peoples "want" not "need" will always win and the world gets hungrier for protein.
I recently sat next to a vegan at a conference who commented on my steak. She thought that we should be eating less meat because of green house and water etc, as she tucked into her tofu. She was quite alarmed when I told her that the primary destruction of the amazon was to grow soya bean. So whilst its ok to put up the left side of an argument we rarely see the other to balance our thought process. Whilst I did use an adage regarding the sun, have a look at the suns activity regarding sunspots which are solar surges in temp and electro magnetic activity.

http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/solarweek/M ... terfly.gif

There is alarming growth around 1960 and grows through the decades. Could be coincidence, might not be as well. Keep an open mind.

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