Leave to those Aussies to be a bunch of Debbie DownUnder crybabies. I sure can’t complain. We’re having a beautiful, balmy and warm january here in the upper Midwest…
For best effect, play the music above while looking at the pictures..
Last Monday was the hottest day on record, with an average nationwide temperature of 104.5 degrees. The Bureau’s climate services manager, Aaron Coutts-Smith says the current heatwave is “quite exceptional” because of its widespread intensity; records have been broken across all states and territories.
Since the end of December 2012, hundreds of bushfires have raged throughout Australia, fueled by a record-breaking heatwave. Some of the most damaging fires struck Tasmania, a large island off the coast of Victoria. Blazes that raced through the town of Dunalley on January 4 destroyed more than 100 homes.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image (top) showing numerous fires across the island on January 6, 2013. Red outlines indicate hot spots where MODIS detected the unusually warm surface temperatures associated with fires.
Careful observers of the new “Black Marble” images of Earth at night released this week by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have noticed bright areas in the western part of Australia that are largely uninhabited. Why is this area so lit up, many have asked?
Away from the cities, much of the night light observed by the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite in these images comes from wildfires. In the bright areas of western Australia, there are no nearby cities or industrial sites but, scientists have confirmed, there were fires in the area when Suomi NPP made passes over the region. This has been confirmed by other data collected by the satellite.
A severely burnt sheep stands in a paddock near Bookham outside of Yass, in New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 9 2013. An estimated 10,000 sheep have died in the New South Wales bushfires.
Reuters interviews Holmes-Walker family who are featured in the jetty photo above:
What’s the problem? they’re adapting.
Hi Peter,
Speaking of adapting, the commentariat at Jeff Masters’ blog got a little whacked out today. They started to quote Jim Hansen’s running of the numbers on runaway greenhouse gases / global warming and how soon we might reach the surface temperature of Venus here on Earth.
Opinions varied. Some people pointed out that the oceans would boil off well before we reached Venus-like temperatures. That was mighty comforting. That way we wouldn’t have to hide under jetties to escape forest fires, we could simply walk out to the middle of dry oceans and be safe. Is that what you had in mind regarding adapting? [wink]
that, or we’d grow special heat resistant genetically modified shells. Either way.
I really don’t see what the fuss is about.
Re: “I really don’t see what the fuss is about.”
Exactly. The way I look at it everything is balancing out. Here’s what that Australian family should be thinking about. This is what happens when there’s too much cold water and ice about:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/stranded-killer-whales-break-free-hudson-bay?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
Meanwhile, Western Australia provides some extraordinary photos of a haboob with a cloud cap:
http://www.wunderground.com/news/dust-storm-australia-20130110
The other thing about Australia’s recent events is that our Bureau of Meteorology had to make a few changes to their reporting due to climate change. They had to increase their colour scales for maps because the extreme heat was beyond their long used colour scale.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/temperatures-off-the-charts-as-australia-turns-deep-purple-20130108-2ce33.html
It’s time for the House Science Committee to give the laws of physics a stern lecture.
House Science Committee:
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Chairman.
First speaker Joe Bastardi.
[Bastardi] After I successfully predicted hurricane Sandy, the first of two major hurricanes to hit the Northeastern United States by 2015, I have also predict that with the PDO (Pacific decadal oscillation) cold and the AMO (Atlantic multidecadal oscillation) turning colder, that global temperature will fall to 1970 levels within the next 20–30 years. We are currently in a global cooling period. You can see for yourselves that here in DC the temperature have drop over the last six months.
[Chairman ] Lord Christopher Monckton on your fact finding trip to Australia what conclusions did you find?
[Monckton] Yes, this global cooling has made the air there dryer causing all the wild fires you have seen on TV.
[Chairman] What about the extreme temperatures that where reported? Can anyone explain that?
[Anthony Watts] If I may Mr. Chairman, The high temperatures measurements fail to take into account for the heat that is generated by the wild fires. I call it the Bushman Fire Island effect. Temperatures measurements that take this effect into account show it is really cooling. Mr. Chairman, this last summer when we saw high temperatures here in DC, it was like winter in Australia and therefore take our highs this summer and add in Australia’s you will see it cooling.
[Chairman] Yes well now with these obvious facts and that the fact Al Gore sold his left-wing cable channel Current TV to Al-Jazeera for $500 million is conclusive proof that this has been a hoax.
Is the “transcript” great satire or is it real?
You are kidding, right? It’s totally unrealistic. Nowhere does it mention the huge positive effects on GDP by the massive increase in disaster relief activity, nor the upward trend on global employment recently enjoyed by the UN Department of Fire, Flood and other Unanticipated Calamities Kaused by Miscellaneous Emergencies.
Yes, I was kidding.
But not kidding about it being great satire.
Meanwhile Narelle is coming to visit the west. (Cat 4 Tropical Cyclone)
Might not be Australian, but seems more appropriate to listen to while reading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOErZuzZpS8
Also I’m sure the nasty letter writing of climate deniers to Julia Gillard might have slowed a bit since it’s hard to write about how a carbon tax is akin to Satan when looking out your window realizing that what’s outside is a vision of hell.
Oops video didn’t come up but it was Arthur Brown’s Fire
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOErZuzZpS8?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Joe Romm at Climate Progress has a nice set of charts on the global warming issue:
http://tinyurl.com/ah75vhs
While my heart does go out to that poor grandmother struggling with her brood under the bridge, I have to admit to wondering at the irony.