Category Archives: News and Views

News and Views, Water

Brisbane-Toowoomba floods 18-20 Nov 08 highlight failure of 28 Oct BoM rain Outlook

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In three short weeks the BoM rain Outlook prediction gets shot to pieces by real world weather.
BoM predicted rain Nov08-Jan09

This inset map shows the BoM predicted on 28th October that the Brisbane region had only a 45% chance of average rain for the November to January period.

To see the original map select the 28th October 2008 rain prediction.

Sadly for the BoM prediction a series of high rainfall storms hit the region from the 18th-20th November
Real world rain 1-23 Nov08

see map inset of rain anomalies from 1st to 23rd November.

You can make various rain maps at this BoM site

See earlier articles re BoM rain Outlook failures:

News and Views, Solar

David Archibald compares various sunspot metrics with the current Solar Cycle (SC) transition, SC23 – SC24

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In the last week or so David has sent me the following graphics illustrating where we might be in the current SC23-SC24 transition period. These warrant an article on their own. I have changed the order from the original post. Comments mainly from David.
Spotless days per month graphic
This graph shows just how different the current solar minimum is compared to those of the second half of the 20th century and those of the second half of the 19th century. The data is smoothed and that is why there aren’t any months with 30 or 31 days.
A large number of spotless days means that the following cycle is going to be late, and the later a cycle is, the weaker it will be.
This graph points to Solar Cycle 24 being very weak.
Spotless days SC23/24 transition
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Solar cycles
This graphic made by David is for anybody who doubts Svensmark theory that galactic cosmic rays control climate. All the major cold periods are associated with higher Be 10, including the cold period at the end of the 19th century. The 20th century warming is clearly associated with lower galactic cosmic rays, and thus a more active Sun.
Galactic influences on climate
David has a bit of fun with this graphic which is aligned on the previous solar minimum. Solar Cycles 3 and 4 prior to the Dalton Minimum had very similar shapes and amplitudes to Solar Cycles 22 and 23.
A fun comparison

News and Views, Solar

Hard lesson about solar realities for NOAA / NASA

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The real world sunspot data remaining quiet month after month are mocking the curved red predictions of NOAA and about to slide underneath. Time for a rethink I reckon NOAA !!
Here is my clearer chart showing the misfit between NOAA / NASA prediction and real-world data.
Misfit NOAA / NASA prediction
Regular readers might remember that we started posting articles drawing attention to contrasting predictions for Solar Cycle 24, way back on 16 December 2006. Scroll to the start of my solar threads.

Then in March 2007 I posted David Archibald’s pdf article, “The Past and Future of Climate”. Well worth another read now, I would like to see another version of David’s Fig 12 showing where we are now in the transition from Cycle 23 to Cycle 24.
Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Issued April 2007 from NOAA / NASA

Much data and commentary at solarcycle24.com

News and Views, Water

Long term rainfall trend updates Melbourne region, Canberra, Warragamba catchment (Sydney Australia)

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While digging around for rain data I thought I would update my “Melbourne water supply issues” page. Look for the Yan Yean monthly long term chart (below the red map) and below that my composite Melbourne region long term rainfall.
This lead on to charting the Queanbeyan Bowling Club trend complete from 1871.
Queanbeyan long term rain trend 1871-2008
Then Taralga from the Warragamba catchment.
Warragamba catchment (Sydney Australia) rain trend from 1885
Compare with my Uriarra district (Canberra, ACT) long term chart.
All of these long term data show that the recent decade is nothing exceptional, in every case the 5 year trend has been lower in earlier periods. Yet to listen to the media you would believe we are in a “long drought” caused by IPCC Greenhouse Global Warming. A bizarre national delusion. Who knows what the future brings, if rainfall long term trends do slide further into uncharted territory we can be sure that our policy response will be based on irrational notions and not on considered logic.

News and Views, Water

Deterioration in BoM rainfall data quality this decade

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While chasing updates for Perth Dam catchments rainfall data I have been hit by how common it is to find a marked fall of in data quality this decade. I want to emphasize I have not searched for these cases, they just jumped out in the normal course of checking data. Then I had a quick look at stations relevant to catchments east of Melbourne incl the Thomson, very poor data there.
I wonder why, considering Australia is widely believed to be in the grip of a national rain / water crisis. Our pioneers have little trouble collecting data reliably for the best part of a century and just when the nation is hit by a downturn in rainfall, the BoM appears to drop the ball on what must be one of its prime reasons for existence. I would suggest there needs to be a reallocation of resources in the BoM; more effort on archiving weather and water data history and presenting it free on the www in a usable form and less resources wasted on climate change fairy stories.
Here are the examples, I have taken a screen shot of the gap ridden recent years and you can click the station name links to see all the data for each station at the new and very useful BoM web page. The columns are monthly rain in mm, Jan to Dec left to right, with the annual total in far right column.
MUNDARING WEIR Site number: 9031 Commenced: 1900, full data to end 1996, missing Jul 1987, then OK till 2001, then just as national “water crisis” hits, missing data increases. First 4 from Perth hills Western Australia then a few from catchments east of Melbourne.
Mundaring Weir rain data gaps
Continue reading Deterioration in BoM rainfall data quality this decade →

News and Views, Solar

David Archibald’s elegant illustration of how late and weak solar cycle 24 is proving

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David Archibald illustration

There is another way of looking at solar cycles.

Solar cycles actually start with the magnetic reversal near the peak of the previous cycle. The sunspots take seven years to surface and become visible. Almost all sunspot cycles tend to be about 18.5 years long, measured from the peak of the previous cycle.

The above graph compares the average of three cycles, 21 to 23, from the late 20th century with three, 14 to 16, from the late 19th century (which had much colder weather). Also included is Solar Cycle 5, the first half of the Dalton Minimum.
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Given we are now 103 months from the peak of Solar Cycle 23, it is now too late to get a late 19th century-type outcome for Solar Cycle 24. Out of the 24 named solar cycles, Solar Cycle 24 is now the latest after Solar Cycle 5.

It is so late that it is now in no man’s land and its weakness is now more of a consideration than lateness in itself.

It is certain that we will be getting a Dalton Minimum-type experience.
David Archibald

Atmospheric science, IPCC, News and Views

Dr Ann Henderson-Sellers of Macquarie University tells us what IPCC Lead Authors Really Think

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Yearly NAO indexesNorth Atlantic Oscillation

From Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News, very much worth your time to read. I think it is fair to say Dr Henderson-Sellers has been a long term supporter of the IPCC and it is stunning news that she is publishing her reservations.

Contrast this with the evangelical certainty of the Rudd Government (Australia) rushing policy to save the planet, at colossal cost to all Australians. For what benefit ? I would say zero measurable effect on global climate.

The source article on the Pielke site includes:

The rush to emphasize regional climate does not have a scientifically sound basis

Until and unless major oscillations in the Earth System (El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) etc.) can be predicted to the extent that they are predictable, regional climate is not a well defined problem. It may never be. If that is the case then we should say so. It is not just the forecast but the confidence and uncertainty that are just as much a key.

Climate models need to be exercised for weather prediction; there are necessary but not sufficient things that can best be tested in this framework, which is just beginning to be exploited.

Energy budget is really worrisome; we should have had 20 years of ERBE [Earth Radiation Budget Experiment] type data by now- this would have told us about cloud feedback and climate sensitivity. I’m worried that we’ll never have a reliable long-term measurement. This combined with accurate ocean heat uptake data would really help constrain the big-picture climate change outcome, and then we can work on the details.

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News and Views, Water

Early May BoM prediction for Queensland dry shot to pieces quickly in June

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On 7 May the BoM’s Brad Murphy was quoted on ABC news item headlined, ‘No hope’ of drought-breaking rains for Qld”.

Weather forecasters say hopes of drought-breaking rain in Queensland are over, because the La Nina pattern has petered out.

Forecasters say the recent La Nina caused the flooding in Queensland last summer but ended too soon to be considered a drought-breaker.

Senior climatologist Brad Murphy says it is about to get a lot drier.

“Up in the north you’ve had most of the rain you can expect for the next six months, until the next wet season,” he said.

“There is going to be the odd rainfall around over the dry period, but farmers shouldn’t be counting on getting any more rain between now and the next wet season.

“It’s very hard to say, I mean we can’t put one season down to global warming if we’re looking at over a long period of time,” he added.

“The monsoon finished a little bit earlier than we would have liked and the rainfall in the last couple of months has been quite low.”

Doctor Roger Stone from the University of Southern Queensland says the chances of drought-breaking rain over the next three months are only about 10 per cent.

Just in the first half of June, most of the southern part of Queensland outside the wet tropics, (which are of course now in dry season mode) has experienced good rains as this BoM map for June to date rain anomalies shows.

qld-2-16june2008.gif

Poor old BoM, shot down again.

See also “BoM forecast dry in Queensland contradicts their 23 April modelled rainfall Outlook”

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IPCC, News and Views

David Henderson questions today’s received opinion on climate change

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This is a very readable and concise summing up of reasons to be skeptical of the IPCC. I have converted David Henderson‘s speech to an html page here

[Note by WSH, this post re-written 24 May. The webpage speech of David Henderson is unchanged]

Summary

David Henderson recently commented on a major presentation by Professor Mohan Munasinghe, a Vice-Chair of the IPCC. He argues that today’s received opinion on climate change issues incorporates three mutually reinforcing and unwarranted
presumptions:

  1. That the official policy consensus, as widely interpreted today by governments and international agencies, mirrors prevailing scientific opinion and goes no further than it would warrant.
  2. That prevailing scientific opinion must now be viewed as no longer open to serious question.
  3. That the process of review and inquiry from which prevailing scientific opinion has emerged, and in particular the IPCC process as its leading element, are professionally above reproach.

In his view, all these beliefs are unfounded. They show a lack of awareness respectively of the present extent of overstatement, overconfidence, and ingrained bias.

Not for the first time, Henderson draws attention to the failure on the part of treasuries and finance ministries across the world to treat climate change issues in an inforrned and resourceful way.

Atmospheric science, IPCC, News and Views

Al Gore blames Global Warming for Cyclone Nargis that has devastated coastal areas of Myanmar

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Al Gore Calls Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone a ‘Consequence’ of Global Warming. Gore claimed global warming is forcing ocean temperatures to rise, which is causing storms, including cyclones and hurricanes, to intensify.

Lets take a look at the FACTUAL EVIDENCE.

First the lower troposphere in the tropics has been COOLING over 16 months.
Cooling over tropical oceans

When we take a closer look, the NASA Earth Observatory has a series of illustrated articles on Cyclone Nargis including this map showing its formation and track.


We see it forming NE of Sri Lanka in late April.

Lets look at Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) for that area in late April, viewing SST global anomaly maps at this NOAA (USA Govt) website.

This anomaly map is from 27 April to 3 May and shows SST’s were if anything slightly cooler than normal.

You can go to this NOAA archive and check back for earlier weekly SST anomaly maps and there are no relevant warm anomalies.

So I say to Al Gore, please ex-Senator Gore, check your facts before speaking to the world.