Sydney

Wombats to the Rescue

The estimated death toll for all animals in the Australian bushfires has doubled in just a few days to over a billion. I was a sucker for the story of wombats encouraging other species of critter into their safe, deep burrows. Proof, if any was needed, that dumb animals are superior to wise apes (aka clever morons). Learning just now that the yarn is not true doesn’t change my opinion one whit.

The argument over how much human activity has contributed to global warming may never end. There seems little doubt that human agency is responsible for much of the destruction caused by bushfires in Australia. Arson and inadequate clearance of combustible materials in vulnerable areas of a drought-stricken country come readily to mind. The rapidity of the burning, the apocalyptic fierceness of the flames (with random explosions), and the melting of vehicles while tree branches above remain unburned – all open up the possibility that psychopaths are involved, with their direct energy weapons, and accelerants dropped by planes engaged in weather modification. A tin foil hat is not required to at least look into such possibilities yourself.

Sydney Airport is one of my monitored weather stations. For my sins, I listen to BBC News and have been brainwashed into thinking that the bushfires are worse in Australia this year because it is hotter. Well, it isn’t hotter in Sydney. It is true that there has been a drop in temperature in the last week, and if this is a nationwide thing it may give the firefighters some respite.

Summer in Sydney, so far, looks a bit like this.

6_Sydney_TabovePI

The week to week rise and fall this year is crazily like that of 2018/19 (2019 for simplicity). It is, however, half a degree centigrade cooler at the end of Week 6 this year. It isn’t just heatwaves fueling the fires then.

Here is another perspective.

6_Sydney_MeanWkTemp

2012 was the coolest summer of the Ten Years from 2009 to 2018, and 2017 the warmest. At Week 6, Sydney is 0.31°C above the 10 Year Average. It follows that it was 0.81 degrees warmer than average last year.

So, Sydney is currently 1.31°C above Pre-Industrial whilst Durham Tees in Northern England is 2.56 degrees above P-I and 0.91°C warmer than at the same time last year.

6_DurhamTees_TabovePI

Sydney

A deep freeze in the eastern United States last week gripped Washington DC, where my station (Ronald Reagan International) plunged to 3.65°C below Pre-Industrial. Rio and Koltsovo also returned negative figures, but they were modest. Durham Tees is now the coldest station for the Year to Date (YTD) relative to P-I, of the eleven I’m monitoring, with just two weeks of the meteorological year to go.

Sydney’s cool week, at 1.07 above P-I, was probably welcomed by the inhabitants but I think blustery winds continued to make bushfire fighting difficult.

Five of my stations posted figures more than two degrees above P-I in Week 50. Mumbai and Shanghai’s contributions were cancelled out by Washington – the northern hemisphere was just 0.14°C above P-I. The south, with the unexpected assistance of Cape Town (2.92 degrees above P-I), finished the week “breaking Paris”, at 1.74 above.

Week50_wkplusYTDinsets

Sydney is not following the trend indicated at the end of August. Spring there will end up being warmer than expected. The southern hemisphere though, represented by the five stations, has yet to reach its forecast warming state. The YTD running average is, however, 1.33°C above P-I, almost half a degree warmer than the Ten-Year baseline (Met Years 2008/9 to 2017/18).

Wk50_SydneySouthTREND

The Mean Daily temperature running average for the Ten Stations is  1.2°C above P-I. I’ve mentioned a few times that my calculation of a Pre-Industrial baseline is “conservative” – on the low side. And I don’t make any attempts to figure the future. Robin at Seemorerocks has re-posted a graph by Sam Carana at Arctic News, showing a rise in global air temperature at land and ocean surface level of 1.85°C since 1750. It shows two degrees being reached by the end of 2020, and a barely survivable four degrees being passed in 2023. Three more years and there may be no hearts at all beating on this planet. This puts getting fed up about Brexit into perspective. (The first anniversary of the Yellow Vest Protests this weekend?)

20191117TempRise_SamCarana

2020 El Nino Could Start 18 Degree Temperature Rise Arctic News

 

Sydney Bucks the Trend

40_FullTable

Sydney’s warm week raised its Mean Daily Temperature running average – only by 0.3ºC but nonetheless confounding the 9-month trendline.

wk40_SydneyCombo

Northern England turned chilly, though not as much as Koltsovo, Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Without Sydney’s contribution of warmth, the southern hemisphere would have equalled the north’s cooling. The globe, as represented by the Ten Stations, saw its running average drop 0.3ºC in Week 40. If Sydney returns to its cooling trend and falls to a yearly average of 1.19º above (my) Pre-Industrial baseline at the end of November, that will still represent a 0.34ºC rise above the Ten Year (2009 to 2018) average.

Dorian

The monster hurricane caused terrible devastation in the Bahamas and, if Puerto Rico’s experience is anything to go by, the people in the worst affected islands will wait a long time for the assistance they need to rebuild communities.

Questions are being asked about the odd behaviour of the storm. Georgia and the Carolinas received a battering – but it could have been worse. And maybe it need not have been as bad as it was for Bahamians.

Dorian is over the Gulf of St Lawrence as I write, and the west coast of Ireland and the Scottish Isles may feel his breath on Tuesday when computer models are showing the storm centre tracking over Iceland.

Weather Week 28

wk28_abovePI_table1

Seven of the ten monitored weather stations experienced average Mean temperatures above the Paris Accord’s limit this week. Washington DC’s relative cold sent me looking online for confirmation and I found some comments about cool temperatures and rainstorms. The forecast is for a cooler than usual summer there. The heat in India has made an impression on Mumbai. It’s running average is no longer below Pre-Industrial levels. Buenos Aires continues to warm, and summer seems to have arrived in Rome, thought Europe’s Eternal City continues to be cooler this year than the Ten Year Average (2008. To 2017/18). The north of England, represented by Durham Tees, has slipped back into chilliness.

wk28_abovePI&10yr_table2

This week’s twins are Shanghai and Sydney.

2428ShanSydFULL

The Arctic Basin is a long way from any of my Ten Weather Stations but it seems reasonable to expect it will give an early warning of the Grand Solar Minimum’s arrival.

 

Southern Summer

Here are the results from five weather stations south of the equator –

SouthernSummerAboveP-I

There is no way of knowing if the TEN Stations together are representative of the Earth as a whole. They combine to give an AVERAGE temperature in the first quarter of the meteorological year of 1.22°C above the Pre-Industrial Baseline; a warming of 0.37°C.

Historical records show temperatures have typically fluctuated up or down by about 0.2°F per decade over the past 1,000 years. But trends over the past 40 years have been decidedly up, with warming approaching 0.4°F per decade. That’s still within historical bounds of the past — but just barely.

Scientific American

My station figures point to a rise much faster than historical, though it is probable that the next 9 months could see this quarter’s rate fall considerably. There is, perhaps, no need to be concerned, but the 0.85°C rise since Pre-Industrial does look a bit on the low side.

There is a dataset that offers an opportunity to compare the historical past with present experience. You can freely download the Central England Mean data from the UK Met Office website. I have an Excel spreadsheet with the annual thermometer-measured figures from 1659  to 2017. It, therefore, covers much of the Maunder Minimum period (1645 to 1710).

A Central England Baseline, averaging the AVERAGE (Mean) annual temperatures from 1659 to 1750, gives a figure of 9.02°C. Calculating the rise to 1960 and each decade thereafter (and finally to 2017) yields this graph.

CentralEnglandMean

Wow, that harsh winter of 1962/3 in England made its presence felt. The rise has reached 1.3°C above the Central England Baseline. Compare that with yesterday’s Northern Winter result of 1.27°C above the Global Pre-Industrial Baseline I have chosen.

The 52 years of the 65 years long Maunder Minimum covered by the Central England dataset averaged 8.8°C, only 0.22°C less than the Baseline figure (1659 to 1750). This suggests that Eddy, if he arrives, isn’t to be feared. Some have suggested that he will be no match for continuing human-induced warming.

Are things hotting up on the sub-continent?

The legacy media are not giving us much information about the conflict between India and Pakistan. After closing its airspace on Thursday, Pakistan seems to be allowing commercial flights over the country again but India’s north-west seems to be out of bounds still. In the screenshot below the highlighted jet is an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from London Heathrow heading for Delhi.

20190302_PakIndAirspace2

Across La Manche, the Yellow Vests have protested for the sixteenth Saturday straight. The UK regime doesn’t want us to know about it. All quiet on the BBC front.

Koltsovo Station

I wrote yesterday that this was the warmest of my ten stations. It was actually the coldest – but I had its temperature anomaly in mind. On six days last month, the average temperature was over 10°C above the Pre-Industrial baseline. It is also the station with the greatest fluctuations of temperature from one day to the next.

KoltsovoJAN2019

Here’s a graph of Sydney data (Kingsford Smith station) for comparison.

SydneyJAN2019

Last month was Australia’s hottest January for over a hundred years, “and there is no relief in sight for the months ahead”.