"Nation
bakes in hottest year" shoddy article on
news.com.au and on page 7 of Dec 17-18, issue of The Weekend
Australian, our premier national daily newspaper. My letter
to the Journalist and Editor and original article on news.com.au. For
those many non Antipodean readers, my reference in the letter to "Fine
Cotton", refers to a notorious horse racing scandal in Australia many
years ago. The article is based on this map of contoured
trends. Over 90% of the orange area of highest warming are from
regions of Australia largely devoid of people and I would suggest
devoid of meaningful long term temperature data too. Note how the
orange contour skips around Alice Springs, Giles and the longer term
data in SA.What a disgraceful example of BoM propaganda, a "dodgy brothers" of a map.
What utter balderdash for The Australian to publish.
Note Coolwire 15 critiqued similar November 14 BoM claims about 2005 being our hottest year and demonstrate city by city how NASA GISS data does not agree with the BoM.
For comment on strange goings on and alterations of 2005 gridded data visualizations at the CRU website.
Perth, Western Australia, has cool start to summer
This article from the 11 Dec "Sunday Times" (great paper) quotes BoM people discussing the first 9 days of December and says, "Perth's start to summer is equal to the coolest on record..". They say Perth records began in 1897.
The ABC News web site has a later item dated the 11th and only claims, "The weather bureau [(BoM)]says this year's start to summer in Perth has been the coolest for 40 years."
Coolwire is slightly puzzled by this slight contradiction and will follow events closely waiting for a BoM media release.
Coolwire would also be thrilled if the BoM would give some background information on the REASONS for this unusual run of cool weather which we note is akin to a reversion to October average daily warmth.
Coolwire suspects it is something to do with the A-N-T-A-R-C-T-I-C , a place the BoM is curiously reluctant to mention.
More to come.
Was Arctic sea ice extent comparable in the 1890's with today ?
The Oldham
Skeptic has sent in this fascinating snippet of Arctic history. "I have been looking at Nansen's Fram expedition 1893 . The ship Fram was not designed to cut through pack ice. In September 1893 the Fram encountered the pack 250 miles NW of where the De Longs ship the Jeannette sank at 77 14'57" N, 154 58'45"E. When arrived at this position 78 50' N, 133 37' E; Nansen anchored the Fram to the ice and allowed it to freeze in."
Satellite maps of Arctic sea ice extent at http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html [The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Supporting Cryospheric Research Since 1976 CIRES, 449 UCB University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0449]
include the thumbnail at left for 2004 and the pink line shows the 1979-2000 median September ice edge.
Are there any sailing ship experts out there prepared to offer an opinion as to where Nansen might have hypothetically moored the Fram to pack ice relative to that 1979-2000 median ice edge ?
Has Antarctic sea ice extent changed much in 91 years ?
Ninety one years ago
Sir Ernest Shackleton left South Georgia in the Endurance with his
expedition to cross Antarctica. After only a few days sailing
they encountered sea ice around the South Sandwich Islands (one of
these visible just under the S to left of South Georgia) and after
battering their way southwards the Endurance was eventually
trapped in the South Weddell Sea about January 18 1915. The
story of the survival of most of Shackleton's party over the next
20 months is one of the truly epic adventures of the 20th century. Our point is that here is another indication that there has been little net "climate change" in this region of the globe on a century timescale. This also supports the point made elsewhere in these pages that temperatures in many Southern Hemisphere land stations were as warm in the 1890's as in recent decades. Evidence for this concept can be found in temperature data from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the far south of South America.
Thanks to the Oldham Skeptic for the alert.
Satellite image map above from US Navy website; http://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/
Summary accounts of the Shackleton expedition can be read at;
http://www.south-pole.com/p0000098.htm
and;
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/shackleton/home.html
Will be looking for details of the Endurance log book.
Added 11 Dec, from the Oldham Skeptic who points out that, "It seems as Shackleton considered that encountering ice as far north as he did to be unusual since Filchner had taken the same route 2 years earlier
http://www.south-pole.com/p0000103.htm
when the ice was apparently much less." It gets worse for the claims of the "Global Warmers".
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