Yes... It's very sad and disturbing...

But the conservative party in Australia has turned to low blows in fits of madness and stupidity under the guidance of a seemingly sociopath-in-chief Abbott the Little Shit. Annointed heir to Rattus the First, Tony Abbott makes Tony Soprano look like an intelligent benevolent charitable man about to enter priesthood.

May the Libs self-distruct in shame for being so callous. May all the intelligent people in that party shoot that little bastard, Tony... of course, politically speaking...

Now... is there intelligent people in the Liberal (conservative) Party in Australia?... That is the loosing question. There was some, but they all got muzzled, backbenched and retired by their Y-front man...

To tell the truth, I use hot flames to represent global warming, but I should use water drops... Flames are more dramatic though. As the globe is warming up, humidity goes up and we get massive floods and landslides... Some scientists and climatologists are not ready yet to claim these are "climate change" induced, but I am. Not so much on the events themselves but on their ferocity and the frequency of repeats. As the world is about to enter an El Nino period, after a La Nina that saw some major climatic troubles around the world, are we about to have a respite from all this?

Yesterday in Sydney, the weather bureau predicted 27 degree C for the city, then in the morning the prediction was revised down to 24. The actual temperature reached 31.4. So how come a weather bureau with countless computing programs and gigabytes of data comes up with a poor estimate of what's going to happen?

I could have predicted better by just looking at the sky, the previous night. Actually I did much better.

Since I have been a kid, I have looked at the sky and other indices like plants (onions for example for long range forecasts) to give me an idea of the weather for the next day or three. Seeing the horizon or near it is important. How the sun sets or rises gives a clue on the weather for the following 24 to 48 hours. These observations are the more important when there are unsettled weather conditions due to the edge of a trough or being on the side of a low... When a trough or a low is passing through, one knows the weather is going to be of a kind, especially also knowing the temperature... I often say: "it's too hot to rain" or "bring in the washing, the temperature is dropping..." Knowing the dew point is often the key. My knowledge is not infallible but far more accurate than the weather bureau...


Not so long ago, a southerly change in Sydney would last for three days and weaken. These days, this semi-predictibility is iffy. After a day or so, humid hot wind from the north-east are often taking over, bringing back the humidity carried north by the southerly PLUS extra humidity from the sea, which at the moment is still "too" warm. The southern current is nearly 29 degrees C just offshore of Coffs Harbour, more than 25 degrees C just outside Sydney and it eddies 300 kms on the same latitude off Sydney at more than 28 degrees C. Too warm for the season...

In La Paz, they've just experienced major landslides. So are we going to get a respite from La Nina with El Nino... I don't think so. There are still pockets of dry hot air lurking despite the humidity. We may not see floods in the Southern Hemisphere for a couple of years but there is a great chance to see major droughts — more devastating that ever before. Yet this is likely to increase the chances of killer hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the Philippines and Japan....

In Australia a repeat of the 2009's bush fires is a strong possibility. With global warming comes greater intensity of heat and humidity and of heat and dryness, depending on time and location.

Is a carbon tax going to solve the problem?

The short answer is "no". But It's a small (and necessary) step in forcing capitalism to include the environment in its equation of greed. By 2015, we will realise how much more we should have done. It's better, though, than giving polluting industry money to fiddle fake solution (the "con"-servative approach)...

To some extend we're at a loss at knowing what to really do, so we generally ignore global warming... And who are we to blame ourselves? It's only an insignificant 0.05 of a degree per year. Who cares if science has proven that our CO2 is the culprit...

Over a one hundred year period this yearly 0,05 trend actually accrues to 4 degree C, compounded. But as the rate of CO2 "will" increase by more than 2ppm per year on top of present levels of CO2 release — due to our world carbon based energy increase, there "will" be a further 2 degrees increase by 2100. This is why targets such as 60 percent reduction of CO2 emission by 2050 have been set worldwide to contain the increase at 2 degrees by 2100. Will we achieve this?

Scientists are not stupid, day in day out they crunch numbers but these numbers are not palatable to our super-intelligent motor mouth shock jocks and to our super-brains Liberals (conservatives) and their carbon producing friends...

Will we manage to do anything worthwhile? I hope so. We might have to turn the shock jocks' microphones off and give them laryngitis. May they shut up and listen for a while. As far as the Liberals are concerned, may they brawl amongst themselves  and implode until the end of time... They're idiots.

I live in dreamland, don't I?

See toon at top...

Darwin has had its wettest wet season on record, two months before the wet season officially ends.

Six millimetres was recorded at the Darwin Airport gauge overnight, enough to break the previous record of 2.5 metres of rain that fell during the 1997-98 wet season.

The heaviest falls were recorded in the 24 hours to 9am on February 16, when 367.6mm was dumped on the city, obliterating the previous 24-hour record of 290.4mm.

The heavy rain was associated with Cyclone Carlos, which continued to dump hundreds of millimetres of rain onto Darwin over the following days.

"It's very unusual for us to break that record in early March," the Bureau of Meteorology's regional director Andrew Tupper said.

"You'd normally expect that it would be late March or early April where we are starting to say, 'Oh, we could get the record'.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/04/3155030.htm?section=justin

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Gus: of course I have mentioned humidity for a while on this site... including the above comment "to tell the truth", and and now for the weather... Read letter to prue as well...

The Bureau of Meteorology is warning more extreme weather is heading for cyclone battered north Queensland.

Forecaster Michael Knepp says a southerly surge will converge with north-westerlies over north Queensland this weekend, forming a monsoonal trough and dumping torrential rain.

"Usually with these monsoonal troughs, the very strong ones, we get very heavy rain in a very narrow band," he said.

He says there is the possibility a tropical low could develop out of that system and form into a cyclone by mid-next week.

Towns in the state's west and north-west will get a drenching, with falls of more than 200 millimetres predicted, along with the chance of a tropical low forming in the Gulf mid to late-next week.

South-east Queensland is being drenched, with falls of up to 100 millimetres in part of the Brisbane and Lockyer Valleys.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/04/3155273.htm?section=justin

read all comments above and see toon at top...

A disgruntled green loans assessor, a former Victorian public servant turned climate sceptic and a Sydney pacemaker king are the figures behind a national series of rallies planned to shoot down Julia Gillard’s carbon tax.

Liberal Party-linked figures Jacques Laxale, Michael Cejnar and Colin Ely have all emerged as linchpins for the nationwide March 23 “No Carbon Tax” protests, which is hoping to drag thousands of everyday Australians on to the street following Tony Abbott’s clarion call for a “people’s revolt”.

...

Meanwhile, activist group GetUp! are apparently launching their own counter-protests, amid suggestions that the no carbon crew are being directed by forces within the Liberal Party and are therefore nothing more than astroturf.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/07/meet-the-brains-behind-the-anti-carbon-tax-rallies/

Australia has had its second wettest summer since records began 111 years ago and above-average rainfall is expected to continue.

"Nationally we averaged 354.7mm - 70 per cent above normal and second only behind the infamous summer of 1973-74 when 419.8mm was recorded," Weather Channel meteorologist Tom Saunders said.

He said one of the strongest La Nina events on record was to blame and all states and territories recorded above average falls.

Victoria has never had a wetter summer and it was Western Australia's second wettest.

South Australia had its third wettest summer, NSW its fifth, Queensland its sixth and the Northern Territory its eighth.

However, in Tasmania, the summer was well off record levels (17th).

"After a decade of drought, the Murray-Darling Basin also recorded its third wettest summer on record," Mr Saunders said.

"Looking ahead into autumn, the La Nina is now past its peak and has been weakening since early January.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/australias-second-wettest-summer-on-record-20110307-1bk5y.html

----------------------

BUT... but... but... Western Australia's second wettest??? WA is a BIG state with several "bands" of different weather. Second wettest??? Sure that's because — despite Perth being in the grip of a drought — some parts of the state must have had their wettest ever record. States like New South Wales and Queensland are also covered by several bands of weather patterns... I would guess that Sydney weather has been average or below par this summer in regard to rainfall and warmer than average in regard to temperatures... This would mean that it rained a lot in other parts... Thus it is important to know where we place the rain gauges and the thermometers...

see toon at top and how long is a piece of string...

From Graham Readfearn at the Drum, ABC...

...

Yesterday also in The Daily Telegraph, a follow-up claimed the initial story was a beat-up instigated by climate scientists to engender sympathy from the public. This story focussed only on issues at Australia National University in Canberra. No mention was given of the other 30 scientists in other institutions, some of which are in The Daily Telegraph's circulation area.

How could this be an "opportunistic ploy" from the climate scientists, as the story suggests, when it was Canberra Times environment reporter Rosslyn Beeby who instigated and pursued the story?

And how could this issue raised in a rival Fairfax media outlet be dismissed by concentrating on just one university, when it's clear that this involves a number of institutions?

The Daily Telegraph news story said the extent of heightened security at ANU was the issuing of keyless access cards, but it failed to include the fact that scientists were moved to a new location where keycard security had been introduced. Was this fact, like the others it chose to ignore, left out to make the issue sound more trivial?

None of these important factors bothered Shadow minister for industry, innovation and science Sophie Mirabella, who last night also chose to peddle the myth that scientists had somehow orchestrated the release of emails to gain sympathy from the public.

In a press release she wrote how a "shadow has been cast over recent reports that scientists received death threats over the carbon tax debate". Mirabella suggested that "some scientists appear not to have been totally honest about such threats".

Which scientists have been dishonest, and how?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2754194.html

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Gus: Mirabella is dishonest, so is Abbott, so is Joe Hockey, so is a lot of denialists on the Liberal side of politics. And I would not be surprised if the death threats to scientists came from the "Menzies House" members as a sad prank...

"Or so-called “climate scientists”, who, without millions in funds for scaremongering would face the unemployment queue"

Rabid writing from acting editor-in-chief of "Menzies House", Tim Andrews...

Climate warming since 1995 is now statistically significant, according to Phil Jones, the UK scientist targeted in the "ClimateGate" affair.

Last year, he told BBC News that post-1995 warming was not significant - a statement still seen on blogs critical of the idea of man-made climate change.

But another year of data has pushed the trend past the threshold usually used to assess whether trends are "real".

Dr Jones says this shows the importance of using longer records for analysis.

By widespread convention, scientists use a minimum threshold of 95% to assess whether a trend is likely to be down to an underlying cause, rather than emerging by chance.

If a trend meets the 95% threshold, it basically means that the odds of it being down to chance are less than one in 20.

Last year's analysis, which went to 2009, did not reach this threshold; but adding data for 2010 takes it over the line.

"The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn't significant at the standard 95% level that people use," Professor Jones told BBC News.

"Basically what's changed is one more year [of data]. That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years - and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510

Most (all) dorkjocks won't understand a single word of this and they would not care. According to the dorkjock or shockdork handjob-book, climate change does not exist, unlike the fairies at the bottom of your garden — the sweet little things....

Gillard's stealth strategy changes the carbon game
July 11, 2011
Opinion

EDITORIAL

After all the fuss, the Gillard government's carbon tax package will probably surprise most people by its mildness. That is clearly the intention. The government wants to calm an over-anxious electorate in which fear has been running wild for months. It has set the rate of tax low - $23 a tonne of carbon. The rate will rise more slowly than expected in later years. It has restricted the number of those on whom the tax will fall to the 500 biggest polluters. And though these will mostly pass on the cost to consumers, most of the latter, too, have been amply compensated, even overcompensated, by big changes to the tax and family benefits systems.

Along with the gradual tax increase, the industry compensation packages will be phased out slowly. The stealth strategy is entirely understandable, given the recent history of this issue, in which opponents of measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions have resorted to the most dishonest and irrational tactics. The debate, so-called, on this question is not one of which Australia can be proud. It is to the government's credit that it has stuck to its task and produced this result.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/gillards-stealth-strategy-changes-the-carbon-game-20110710-1h8th.html#ixzz1RkDxArDP

Gus: ...and one can be proud that she has not said one bad word about the opposition and Tony Abbott in the delivery of the package.... unlike me. But Julia's tactic is working: The focus is now far more on what she has achieved rather than on Abbott jumping up and down... Good one. See toon at top.