New Year snow in South Canterbury, mid-summer New Zealand

I am sure it is not unknown – Cold snap brings snow to Sth Canterbury.

Perspective from the NZ Herald in Auckland, I saw earlier about a bridge out on the West Coast – it has been known to rain there. Does anybody have an online source showing if the rain event was unusual for this time of year ?

Henbury carbon farming project methodology not approved by Canberra – who contributed $9mill in the first place

This shambles just gets worse – “Red Centre carbon farming blueprint knocked back”
and announced over the New Year hols by the Govt compliant ABC. Will we ever know the truth.
I have three earlier notes on the subject.
Qantas makes announcements about buying carbon credits
Then –
A month is a long time in carbon farming – QANTAS with egg on their face
and in November
Commonwealth public servant ‘decision makers’ slaving away for $20 per hour

Hydrocarbons discovered in the Horsehead Nebula – in our galaxy

Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute report their stunning discovery which adds support to those proponents of an Abiotic origin for hydrocarbons.
The researchers were surprised by the unexpectedly high levels of hydrocarbons. “The nebula contains 200 times more hydrocarbons than the total amount of water on Earth!”, said IRAM-astronomer Viviana Guzman.
“We observe the operation of a natural refinery of petroleum of gigantic size”, concludes Jérôme Pety.
Another problem for the IPCC.

Indian Ocean heatwave off Western Australian coast – beatup continues now correlated with shark attacks

I first noticed these claims when the ABC Catalyst TV show (IPCC TV) ran “Taking Our Temperature” in November. I enjoyed the calm statements in the “Catalyst” NARRATION such as – “In fact, it was part of the biggest heatwave to hit Australia’s waters ever. It began just north of Ningaloo Reef, hitting it heartbreakingly with the force of a pot of boiling oil.”
Oh OK, only as hot as boiling oil then !! We will leave Catalyst there.
A few days ago the media has been running with – “WA ocean heatwave linked to shark attacks” – but the most scientific article I can find online is this UWA page from last July – “Unprecedented Indian Ocean heatwave creates melting pot”.
They say – “In the summer of 2010/11, the region experienced the highest seawater temperatures in at least 140 years”. Now taking the region off Perth as 30 to 35 South and 114 to 116 East, just the coastal strip and checking out the HadSST1 SST data at KNMI Climate Explorer; we find that the summer (Dec-Jan-Feb) of 1999-2000 was warmer (1.33 deg) than 2010-2011 (1.27 deg). So, claim shot down or at the very least marginal. The Reynolds SST data confirms that summer of 1999-2000 was warmer than 2010-2011 in that coastal strip off Perth.
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Would the Angola media be running “ocean heatwave” stories ? Is their marine flora & fauna less worthy than ours ? And how about the large warm anomalies in the SE Pacific and South Atlantic ? – are teams of highly paid marine scientists writing papers about the effects of those large areas warmer ocean on the zillions of micro-organisms to be found there ? Or are they less worthy than marine life near the Perth coast.
Note the cold anomalies in north European seas and all around the USA in their winter 2010-11, some of which are relatively colder than the Perth anomalies are warm. Do cold patches of ocean have less significance for affecting marine life than warm patches ?

Classic IPCC compliant West Antarctica “warming faster” story – destroyed by satellite data

Just saw this at ABC online Christmas eve – too busy to respond – I see Anthony Watts with it too.
This neat map and story is at the OurAmazingPlanet.com site.

Unfortunately for the authors of the Nature paper – NASA satellite lower troposphere temperature data by UAH team Spencer & Christy shows cooling over the 1979-2012 period for the 60 degree sector covering West Antarctica with Byrd Station (near 80S – 119W) central.

The trend for the entire zone between 75 & 85 south is also cooling.

Enviroment Canada predicted a “Green Christmas” – now what is happening ?

A week or so ago my eye was caught by this headline – “Most Canadians should expect a green Christmas: Environment Canada” – and I thought – well they should know, they are the Canadian Weather Office.
Now I see their forecast for 25 December 2012 looks like this –

and I am wondering if there is some parallel universe re temperature units in Canada. Perhaps readers can let us know how much green is around where “most Candians” live as we tick down to Christmas.

CGPS based geodetic measurements at ten Pacific Ocean tide gauges show five are sinking, four steady and one rising 2001-2008

Just came across this under-reported gem from Geoscience Australia, I note their disclaimer – “…the length of the time series is too short for reliable vertical station velocity estimation….”
As the years roll on these data should become more reliable guides as to the changes in tide gauge heights. But what they show so far is worth reporting.
Cook Islands – steady

Fiji – steady

Kiribati – down

Manus Islands (PNG) – down

Micronesia – down

Nauru – down

Samoa – steady

Tonga – up

Tuvalu – steady

Vanuatu – down

Marshall Islands – data too short

Anybody seen the IPCC on the road to Damascus ?

Anthony Watts has the story that the latest IPCC Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”) acknowledges strong evidence for solar forcing beyond total solar irradiance (TSI)
This quote from AR5 – “The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.”
The AR5 draft is being leaked here.
Maybe the IPCC might cotton on to the additional reality that our current very weak solar cycle 24 is not exactly portending warmer times.

To understand Perth sea-levels is a complex issue – much of the Perth plain has subsided in recent decades

Recent media publicity around a “State of Australian Cities” report has beaten up claims that Perth sea-levels are rising at three times the global average, or near 10mm per year. A matter that Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese described as “disturbing and extraordinary”. Chris Gillham shows that the claims in the State of Australian Cities report re Perth sea level rise are over-hyped.
This chart fom a 2010 WA Govt planning report shows long term sea level changes at Fremantle.

The State of Australian Cities report concentrates on shorter term more sensational trends in the last 20 years but omits to quote recent research measuring rapid subsidence of large areas of the Perth coastal plain.
A 2012 paper – Anthropogenic land subsidence in the Perth Basin: challenges for its retrospective geodetic detection – says subsidence at Gnangara for the 14 years 1997-2011 has averaged 4.6mm per year – see Table 1 below.

In recent decades subsidence has been worsened by increased drawdown ground water for Perth water supplies – a process which has eased post 2005.

This online chart shows CGPS readings from the Hillarys tide gauge installation and indicates steady sinking of ~3mm per year 2006-2012. There are no CGPS readings I can find from Fremantle.
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Hillarys has CGPS data from 1997 and Featherstone et al say those data – “…are not in a form that can be readily analysed in a short time frame, particularly because of the multiple equipment changes that make the time series very discontinuous.” Other published versions of the Hillarys CGPS data quote a 1998-2009 subsidence averaging just over 5mm per year. Watson PJ – Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level
Rise around Mainland Australia?
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2011
Featherstone et al 2012 discuss surveying to detect level changes and say – “There is some scope for detecting subsidence in the Perth Basin if levelling is repeated now or sometime in the future. However, the costs are likely to be prohibitive.”
I fail to see how a few repeat levelling traverses from the Darling Ranges to the coast costing what ? – a few $million ? – should be beyond the wealth of a First World nation like Australia. Apparently some traverses were carried out in the 1980’s.
There is no shortage of Govt grant monies to waste on shonky Greenhouse inspired “research”.
Tide gauges and harbours are often located in places where the crust is sinking due to say sedimentation from a river. Any harbour structure attached to piles will slowly sink into the muddy substrate over the decades – factors like traffic vibration, a century of ships banging into piles – all can contribute to piles sinking. Dock areas where tide gauges tend to be installed are often the sites of reclaimed land, Auckland is an example. This tends to quietly settle for decades which can confound tide gauge data. At Fremantle 150 years of urbanization – including storm-water drainage direct to the sea – can lower ground water levels and cause subsidence – quite apart from deliberate ground water harvesting.

Primarily exposing faulty methodologies behind global temperature trend compilations