Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptical Arguments Against AGW Alarmism

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Wanting to find a list of peer-reviewed papers supporting an alternative perspective on climate change? It’s just been compiled by the geeks at popular technology.net

http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html#Preface

So much for the false statement by Al Gore in 2000 that:

“There was a massive study of every scientific article in a peer reviewed article written on global warming in the last ten years. They took a big sample of 10 percent, 928 articles. And you know the number of those that disagreed with the scientific consensus that we’re causing global warming and that is a serious problem out of the 928: Zero. The misconception that there is disagreement about the science has been deliberately created by a relatively small number of people.”

The list includes 1350 plus papers on a range of topic: [Read more…] about Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptical Arguments Against AGW Alarmism

Mining Historical Data to Provide Better Medium-term Rainfall Forecasts

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THERE are at least 3 practical ways in which medium-term rainfall forecasts for Queensland can be improved:Rain drops on water

1. Through the use of sophisticated statistical modelling techniques, in particular artificial neural networks to mine historical data for recurrent patterns,

2. The incorporation of relevant climate indices, including the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation, and also

3. The presentation of forecasts as charts showing total forecast rainfall, rather than as coloured maps with assigned probabilities.

And there is a fourth suggestion, also detailed in the recent paper by myself and John Abbot that has just been made available for free download by Elsevier, publishers of the journal Atmospheric Research.

The link is here: http://elsarticle.com/1ej97n3

Free access will only be available until March 26, 2014. Enjoy!

Temperature Variability by State and Over Recent Years: Comment from Bob F-J on 2013 Record

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I HAVE already detailed my concerns with the claim by the Bureau of Meteorology that 2013 was the hottest year on record. Thank you for your many comments in the threads that followed the two blog posts. I am taking many of these comments into consideration in the development of a further set of questions.

In the meantime Bob Fernley-Jones, a retired engineer based in Melbourne, suggests that even if one accepts the truncating and adjusting that the Bureau has undertaken to arrive at the 2013 record annaul average temperature, given the actual temperature statistics published by the Bureau, David Jones was not justified in making the headline-grabbing statements that he did on January 3, in particular that there is a general warming trend and that it is Australia-wide.
Mr Fernley-Jones makes the following points, with the charts and supporting references available for download here:

1. One data point does not make a trend. There has been considerable variability over recent years in both the annual mean temperature anomaly and also the annual maximum temperature anomaly, Chart 1.

2. When regional variability is considered it is evident that only one state, South Australia, was signficiantly warmer in 2013, Chart 2.

3. The seasonal distribution of temperature is important, for instance warmer winters might arguably be a good thing for South Australia, while hotter summer are generally not. When the season mean temperatures for South Australia are considered for the period 1990 to 2013, the summer of 2013 was not particularly hot, Chart 3. In fact not a single season was hotter in 2013.

4. While much has been made of January 2013 being exceptionally hot, when the mean January temperature anomaly is plotted for South Australia back to 1910, Chart 4, it is apparent that 2013 was not an exceptionally hot January with hotter January’ occuring in the 1930s.

5. According the Bureau’s own time series data based on truncated and adjusted data series, mean January maximum temperatures have been flat since 1934 for the Northern Territory, and since 1947 for Queensland. New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have hotter January’s going back to 1938. South Australia, the hottest region for 2013, has eight hotter January’s going back to 1933. Tasmania has about 25 hotter January’s going back to 1917. Victoria has about 20 hotter January’s going back to 1939.

Mr Fernley-Jones’ critic can be read in more detail by downloading this document BobF-J_BlogVer2.

SA Hottest

Save Lady Elliot, Set AirCon to 25 Degrees

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Dear Jennifer, I had a holiday on Lady Elliot Island in October 2013 and while there took the attached photos with the idea that I might send the one of the climate change sign to an Australian blog as an example of Federal Government alarmist propaganda.

Lately the tide seems to be turning against the CO2 global warming scam with the Akademik Shokalskiy debacle in the Antarctic, record polar sea ice totals, the circumpolar vortex in the northern hemisphere and Tom Switzer’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald. However with the heat waves lately in Australia the warmists are fighting back with the usual dodgy forecast heat records which are very seldom reached but most people don’t question them. I commend you for your open letter to the BOM requesting verification of the 2013 temperature record.Lady Elliot

I had another look at this photo of the sign today to work out again how much sea level rise they showed in the graph from 1990 to 2013 and it scaled about 300mm or 13.04mm/year. As another check I scaled the 600mm rise over 57.5 years and only got 10.43mm/year which seemed extremely odd, (I’m a retired land surveyor used to working with graphs).

On further inspection I finally noticed that the 5 year intervals on the x axis read 2010, 2015 then jumped 15 years to 2030 and back to 5 year intervals from 2035 to 2055 which explained the yearly rise difference. The sign writer obviously made a booboo or the original information he was given was wrong. Either way the error should have been corrected before the sign was released for public viewing. The nearest National Tide Centre Gauge at Rosslyn Bay shows a rise of about 2.8mm/year and has only operated since 1993 so the 13mm/year rise on the graph is ridiculous.

As the Great Barrier Reef is in your bailiwick I thought you might be interested in publicising the gross errors on this “way over the top” sign and I assume that a similar one is also on most of the other islands controlled by the GBR Marine Park Authority but you will probably be able to find this out easier than I can. The 03 in the top left corner may be its sign number.

Regards
Sel Hopley

Click on the image for a larger and better view of the entire photograph including the how to save the Island by setting your air con at 25 degrees celsius.

Japanese Whale Harvest Halted by Activists Operating ‘Small Navy’?

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I HAVE no problems with the sustainable harvest of whales in the Southern Ocean using a grenade tipped harpoon to facilitate a quick death. This is the method used by the Japanese. Usually the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports extensively on the activists attempts to stop this harvest, and from their righteous perspective. I’ve just received the following media release from the Sea Shepherd. They must be desperate to get some news out if they are now sending me their media releases…

SEA SHEPHERD SECURES THE SLIPWAY OF THE NISSHIN MARU: WHALING HALTED

Friday January 31, 2014 – Melbourne, Australia — As of 1700 AEDT today, the Sea Shepherd Fleet has shut down the operations of the Japanese whaling fleet for seven consecutive days. The Sea Shepherd ships now guard the slipway of the Nisshin Maru, rendering the factory vessel unable to butcher and process whale meat. [Read more…] about Japanese Whale Harvest Halted by Activists Operating ‘Small Navy’?

Open Thread

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I’ve been asked to open a new thread. So, why not introduce a new topic? I really like goat’s cheese, and especially Meredith Dairy goat cheese. Meredith Dairy Goat Cheese
This is an unsolicited advertisement for one of my favourite foods.