global warming is but a simple process of planetary reactivity...

scummo

History is quite a mediocre means for humans, us, to make sense of our collective and personal memory.

Memory is one of the essential keys to life, but understanding what memory does to us, by and large, still eludes us. We delude ourselves by “inventing” an unreal memory, a fake history swimming in beliefs in order to justify our existence, which is only relatively important to us, but is insignificant and irrelevant in the greater universe. At this level we make predictions of hopes on what has happened to us, personally and to our social construct over time. The previous grand delusions have solidified in various beliefs and stone monuments that are like markers to these beliefs, which at most time are created to comfort our uncertainty, cosmic position and to “protect” us from the fear of incomprehensible death.

Comforts have undeniably improved life for many people, in memory and in practicality, but there are still people who wade in abject poverty, many of which do not have the luxury to dream either way. This is understood. Ai Weiwei tells us:

History shows that a moral failure is always accompanied by painful realities, visible everywhere. The global refugee crisis is worsening daily, and 70 million refugees have been forced to leave their homes by war and poverty. Our living environment is constantly being degraded, and the ecological balance is ever more fragile. Armed conflicts persist and potential political crises lurk; regional instabilities grow more acute; autocratic regimes brutally impose their will, while democratic governance is in decline. Unreasoning and unrestrained expansion under a nationalist, capitalist order is exacerbating the global gap between rich and poor. Our views of the world have become more divided and more conflicted than ever.

All this is not knew, mostly because we never achieved democratic morality critical mass, but we have better means to observe all of this, through electronic communications and a more consciencious education. We have now to find ways to connect what we see with what we do, but our general media are still contracted to gloss over the major troubling issues, in order to glorify “our” side of the story. History. We need to find respect and encourage respect while avoiding superiority of civilisation. Civilisations need to maintain a certain amount of cohesion within, otherwise they end up as a mixed bunch of highway robbers with greed as the central pillar of freedom. Such is human nature. Human rights are thus essential but far from being enough.

Meanwhile we misread the planet. We have misread the planet since our first slanted recording of history. Our memory still does not make sense because we misread the planet’s own past, in which atoms and molecules in innumerable numbers are in flux between life and death without purpose but with powerful interconnections. We could not survive without photosynthesis. We could not survive without the automatic recycling of the surface bits. Rose petals and dung are connected. Yet we become overcome with our self-importance because it is the super-drive of human nature, developed from instinct to beat the odds of a weak chance of survival — through greed and envy.

We are also told we’re more important than we really are by a few of us who sneakily make greater value out of our self-importance as they suck it for their own accumulation of wealth, to make themselves more important than us. They become popes, rich dudes and Presidents. It’s accumulation of wealth beyond the necessity of nature, using brawny force, clever alliances and cunning. Our troupe becomes dependant on a hierarchy of self-importance. This creates inequality in which we end up believing in the divinity of kings.

These superior humans steal our “collective” memory to resell it to us after it has been historified for their profit. Wars are thus generated. Meanwhile the planet does not care. It cannot care. Its surface still is a flux of molecular equations and reactions, with their own history in which the long memory of life is existentialist, without meaning. What happened has happened. But what will happen is also thinly dependant on what meaning we chose in order to create the next from the available bits — and is also dependant on cosmic dusts that could rattle the flimsy surface of this small ball of molten ingredients, with meteors or comets.

For humans — the “superior” animal species that developed a greater memory than has ever been necessary for sheer survival — the crossroads have been many and we still try to figure out “what happened”. History is not the “truth”. To quote James Mattis: “If you don’t know where you’re going, good luck when you take off on your journey.” To a great extent, humans have had no REAL idea where “they were going”… This is a blessing and a curse — said here without any religious nor pagan intonations, as we invented goals to our venture of being alive.

Beliefs in our final destination are slowly being replaced by scientific memory and adventure, where we can analyse and accept the reactivity of the planetary system, rather than hope to die and go to another life where things would be more glorified. They won’t be. Paradise is far hotter than hell at this level of delusion.

Oblivion is the personal price for having been an amazing small part of the history of this lively planet. At this stage of life’s constructs, we cannot avoid oblivion — except in our deluded mind, while we can hope for a relative continuum of the species. Do we try too hard to make sense of our memory — the greater size of which can take us to imaginary locus, as well as being used to invent practical improved comforts?

The planetary reactivity is simple enough. Global warming is but a simple process of planetary reactivity under changing circumstances. We are changing the circumstances as we improve our comfort and we can evaluate the full-blown reactivity. We could believe that there is a certain amount of elasticity in the process between cause and effect, yet we should be aware than this elasticity is only an apparent time delay of processes. Life is a slow changing equation. A leaf does not grow instantly on a tree. It has to be chemically built within a timeframe in relationship with favourable environmental factors — including availability of chemicals, water, its connectivity to the tree, or plant, and temperature level. And there are billions billions of them, at various stages of coming and going. But as we gain comforts, we are destroying the leaves of nature.

As a species, we have developed many variations of understanding and expressions, which we call “civilisations”. Many of these can conflict and do not often mix because of what we believe our memory should be. Scientifically, this does not make sense. Socially and personally, we’re still in the throws of life’s essential surviving tools — aggressiveness and receptiveness. We interpret them, with various degrees of misunderstanding, in order to gain advantage over each other and over the planetary conditions. We can respect other people, but we may have problem in accepting their beliefs as a new part in our own construct.

Our historical memory should tell us where we’ve been wrong or correct in our survival, yet we pay little attention to the reactive factors. We only see the skin of illusions rather than understand the complexities, the bones and the blood, below the surface. We prefer beliefs instead of scientific knowledge still — though we accept scientific knowledge as long as it does not deter us from our illusions of salvation. Why do we feel we need to be saved from whom we are? Redemption? “Redemption” is the worse ever word ever invented in our language. It a priori implies that we are a failure before we start. A failure before we are born. This simple word is the enemy of human rights.

One of the main ingredients of human survival has been deceit, specially used to foil our poor natural essence. By all account, the human species is “unfinished” in evolution. Our feathers are still missing. But this does not mean failure. Our memory is too fluid and easily fooled to create perfection of nature. We are still fiddling with it. This does not mean failure. Why do we feel we need to be saved from ourselves? The answer lies in our ability to look and refuse to accept what we really see. And we have done this at all echelons of our hierarchies to protect the illusions of hierarchies…

We’re in the process of creating “Artificial intelligence” which for what is worth is frightening the believers in our godly fall from grace, while exciting the futurists who can see this as a “game changer” for the better. We’ve been mucking up our history since day-dot with unsustainability, conflicts, wars, rubbish — and this could be our best chance to set the record straight and give us a more peaceful sustainable progressive future – without destroying freedom nor our multiplicity of civilisation — which rely on traditions — with “globalisation”. This is a big call.

One of our most progressive delusions that stem from our necessary natural receptiveness is compassion. Compassion is a great noble feeling — a feeling that often make us accept what should be technically unacceptable for our survival, at personal and at species level. Compassion is often equated with “conscience” and is often used to define “us” versus other species. But other species can often display compassion. These species do not have the tools to bring what we could equate to compassion to a greater level of help. Compassion and cooperation tend to conflict with another ingredient of civilisation-building and natural survival: competition. While Europe has started to grapple with its compassion — mostly based on guilt — and greater cooperation as a forced experiment, the USA is still pushing for ruthless competition — based on naked aggression and an apparent superiority complex.

Competition can be “healthy”, but in most cases it’s not, as competition is innately a progressive system that promotes inequality. It creates a hierarchy of winners and losers, of masters and slaves, of rulers and subjects. It creates cheats and thieves. It creates envy and wars.

In regard to compassion that should lead to a more egalitarian system of relationship, Andre Vitchek writes this in regard to the Yellow Vests:

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Say that this is true revolution, true battle for improving the world, not just for more money, lower taxes, and better benefits exclusively for people who are living in France!

Say that they would never accept any benefits or extra money, if they come from robbing poor and colonized nations of all that have left.

If they do say all this, and if they demonstrate that they truly mean it, I will have to shout Vive la Révolution! and join them – the protesters – wholeheartedly.

But until they do, until I am convinced that their victory would not harm others, millions of others, I’ll continue to be much more concerned about people of Vietnam and Papua, about Iran, Africa, Syria or the entire Middle East, than about whether someone individual in rural France can afford to take his wife for dinner to a restaurant.

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This is a bit glib for Vitchek. I can understand his frustration in regard to inequality of civilisations, but this inequality is more ingrained in the various belief systems than in the price paid for a bunch of bananas, which the French Yellow Vest people used to be entitled to. What the Yellow Vest protest against is that the populace has been swindled to believe into tightening its belt, while the rich are made to get richer with unnecessary tax cuts and are probably robbing other countries’ resources, including those of Vietnam, Papua, Iran, Africa, Syria or the entire Middle East, apart from robbing “their” own people.

As the West is slowly losing its Christian delusion, The Middle East is still under a strong illusion — the Muslim delusion. In many such countries as mentioned by Vitchek, their own ruling delusions and historical “evolution” and traditions have also been a retardant for sharing equally. The caste system in India is a representative of this inequality. Selfishness is thus not unique to the French Yellow Vest protesting about their way of life being eroded. As mentioned before, the European sense of guilt about its colonial past is creating tensions — not because Europe wants to carry on with colonialism, but because it is being “invaded” by people from countries bombed on behalf of the USA, under sneaky competition games with no rules nor understanding beyond the destruction of things the USA don’t like. Democracy is rustled up under such influx.

Under this scope, someone like Soros has been playing many double games, from that of enforcing globalisation (which could be equated to compassion but ISN’T) through various supports of conflict and “ideals”, for his own personal gain. He is often referred to as a supporter of the left, but don’t be fooled. Globalisation is a new sophisticated form of colonialism.

So, will 2019 be the year of human rights? Will 2019 bring us more understanding of what we're doing wrong to the planet and its natural settings — and will 2019 bring solutions that will not cost the earth?

We will write History to suit our version of events.

A sustainable happy new year to all.

Gus Leonisky

Mad old kook.

By Gus Leonisky at 2 Jan 2019 - 6:05am
Gus Leonisky's blog
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falling asleep at the wheel or finding new ways to steal?

The West is accused of going to sleep at the very time its power and reach was at its height. Political scientist Joseph Nye — the man credited with coining the phrase "soft power" — said in his book The Paradox of American Power that the United States stopped paying attention to the world and turned their sights inward.

Even those who did look beyond America, he wrote, "became arrogant about our power, arguing that we did not need to heed other nations. We seemed both invincible and invulnerable".

Political scientist and former Singapore ambassador to the United Nations Kishore Mahbubani, in a recent book, poses the question "Has the West Lost It?". The short answer is not yet.

But he warns that the West, for 200 years at the forefront of history, now must adapt to a world it no longer dominates.

Mahbubani says Fukuyama's essay, "did a lot of brain damage; having won the Cold War, the West went on autopilot".

The West is suffering from self-doubt: unsure of its values and timid in asserting its virtues.

There is a dearth of leadership and a loss of faith in politics and institutions. Democracy itself is in retreat.

But it would be foolhardy to count the West out; whatever its weaknesses and failings, its fundamental tenets of freedom and representative government remain a beacon for the world as they were in 1989.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-01/stan-grant-2019-the-end-of-histor...

The west has been robbing other nations, under the banner of spreading "de-mo-cra-cy" for yonks... Globalisation is a new word that defines the greater complexity of such colonialisation, in which the hierarchy of nations is not based on human rights but on the artificial values of bananas.

By Gus Leonisky at 2 Jan 2019 - 6:13am
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the yellow flame...

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While nationalism may have played an instrumental role in Brexit, there is a manufactured hysteria hatched by the establishment which successfully reduced the complex range of reasons for the Leave EU vote to racism and flag-waving. They are now repeating this pattern by overstating the presence of the far right among the yellow vests. Such delirium not only demonizes workers but coercively repositions the left into supporting something it otherwise shouldn’t — the EU and by default its laissez-faire policies — thereby driving the masses further into the arms of the same far right. Echoes of this can be seen in the U.S. with the vapid response to journalist Angela Nagle’s recent article about the immigration crisis on the southern border. The faux-left built a straw man in their attack on Nagle, who dared to acknowledge that the establishment only really wants ‘open borders’ for an endless supply of low-wage labor from regions in the global south destabilized by U.S. militarism and trade liberalization. Aligning itself with the hollow, symbolic gestures of centrists has only deteriorated the standards of the left participating in such vacuousness and dragged down to the level of liberals.

There is no doubt Brexit and Trump pushed the xenophobia button and could not have come about without it. However, such criticism means nothing when it comes from moral posturers who claim to “stand with refugees” while supporting the very ‘humanitarian’ interventionist policies displacing them. Nativism was not the sole reason the majority voted to leave the EU and many working class minorities also were Brexiters. Of course their fellow workers and migrants are not the true cause of their misery. After all, it was not just chattel slaves who came to the U.S. unwillingly but European immigrants fleeing continental wars and starvation as well — the crisis in the EU today is no different.

Fundamentally, migrants seek asylum on Europe’s doorstep because of NATO’s imperial expansion and the unexpected arrival of Brexit has threatened to weaken the EU’s military arm. Already desperate to reinvent itself and a new enemy in Russia despite its functional obsolescence, the shock of the referendum has inconveniently undermined NATO’s ability to pressure Moscow and Beijing, a step forward for mitigating world peace in the long run and a silver lining to its outcome. It is the task of the left to reject the EU’s neoliberal project while transmitting the message that capital, not refugees, is the cause of the plight of the masses. It is also necessary to have faith in the people, something cynical liberals lack. Racism may historically be the Achilles heel of the working class but underlying Brexit, the election of Trump, and the yellow vests is the spirit of defiance in working people, albeit one of political confusion in need of guidance.

If the yellow vests are today’s sans-culottes, like those which became the revolutionary partisans in the French Revolution, they will eventually need a Jacobin Club. Relatively progressive but ultimately reformist figures like Mélenchon are no such spearhead and will only lead them down the same dead end of SYRIZA. The absence of any such vanguard has forced the working class to take matters into their own hands in the interim. If history is any guide, the gilets jaunes will be stamped out until a new cadre takes the reins whose objective is, as Lenin said, “not to champion the degrading of the revolutionary to the level of an amateur, but to raise the amateurs to the level of revolutionaries.”

We also cannot fall into ideological fantasies that we live in permanent revolutionary circumstances or that a spontaneous uprising can become comprehensive simply because of ingenious leadership. Nevertheless, as Mao Tse-Tung wrote, “a single spark can start a prairie fire” and hopefully the yellow vests are that flame.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/01/03/why-frances-yellow-vest-protests-hav...

Meanwhile, the planetary settings will adjust to our burning of fossil fuel. This won't destroy us, but it will make life very uncomfortable. We might have to think of civilisations under a different light.

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By Gus Leonisky at 4 Jan 2019 - 5:24am
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hot in france...

With an average of 14.7 degree Celsius, the past year has been the fourth warmest since measuring global surface temperature, as measured by the Copernicus satellite (or OAO-3 for Orbiting Astronomical Observatory). All but no surprise: the four hottest years ever recorded are, in addition to 2018, the three previous years: 2016 (14.85 oC), 2015 (14.81 oC) and 2017 (14.75 oC).

France has obviously not been spared by the phenomenon since, according to data provided by the Institute Météo-France, the year 2018 was the hottest ever recorded on the metropolitan territory. At 13.9oC, it was 2.1 degrees Celsius above average temperatures measured over the period 1961-1990.

In many meteorological stations of Météo-France, 2018 appears as the hottest year ever recorded. This was the case for example in Paris (with an average of 13.9 oC in 2018), Nice (17.2 oC), Le Mans (13.6 oC), Lille (12.2 oC) or Bordeaux ( 15 oC) and Poitiers (13.4 oC).

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2019/01/08/2018-quatrieme-a...

Translation by Jules Letambour.

Please read:

a quarter of a nobel prize...

be gentle...

"The worst, the biggest, the strongest, the wildest, the hottest"...

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33287

Please note that according to Gus-stimates, 2019 and 2021 are likely to be "record years" in terms of global warming.

By Gus Leonisky at 9 Jan 2019 - 6:15am
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proof of the "ignorance of the climate crisis"...

In Sweden, young environmental activist Greta Thunberg becomes victim of trolls

The 16-year-old Swede, at the origin of a worldwide movement of high school and college students who go on a school strike for the climate, has become the target of eurosceptics of all kinds in her own country.

By Anne-Françoise Hivert

A few months ago, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg had become the voice and face of a generation raging against the inaction of adults in the face of the climate crisis. She started her school climate strike alone in front of the Swedish Parliament at the end of August 2018, a few weeks before the legislative elections in her country. Her efforts were then imitated in many countries.

Since then, the American magazine Time has named her among the 25 most influential teenagers on the planet and millions of Internet users have watched the TEDx conference that she gave in Stockholm mid-December, after speaking, in plenary session of COP24 in Katowice, Poland, in a sober and scathing speech to representatives from around the world.

It was enough to provoke the annoyance of trolls, extreme right-wing and climate-sensitive sites of all kinds which, in Sweden, made it their new favorite target on social networks and in the media. So much so that her mother, the opera singer Malena Ernman, ended up publishing a long message on Facebook on January 7, where she unravels one by one the untruths and conspiracy theories targeting her daughter.

The mezzo-soprano — who represented her country at Eurovision in 2009 — is however used to this kind of unleashing, with her stance engaged: advocate of a "human policy" of asylum and the immigration to a country that has tightened its legislation and closed its borders, it is active in the fight against global warming, and tireless defender of the far right in Sweden.

Diagnosed as Asperger

Most of the attacks against the daughter are aimed at the mother, accused of manipulating the teenager to advertise herself on her back. Did Malena Ernman not publish a book with her husband just a few days before the start of Greta's strike? A photo of the girl, in front of the Swedish Parliament, appears on the cover of the pocket edition of the book, published in December 2018.

Except that in August, nobody could have anticipated the mediatization and the impact of Greta's action. The opera singer also recalls that all profits from the sale of the book are donated to NGOs working for "climate, animal rights and children with special needs" - Greta Thunberg was diagnosed with autism Asperger at eleven years.

Another grievance: the teenager would be a puppet in the hands of a team of communicators. False assumptions, says the mother. If the idea of the school strike - modeled on the revolt of American high school students against firearms — was suggested by an environmental activist, Greta Thunberg acted alone, and against the advice of her parents, says Malena Ernman: "We discouraged her and told her we could not support her because we have to make her go to school. "

It is they, however, who finance their trips abroad, not sponsors. They all go to various places in the family electric car, during the holidays or in agreement with Greta Thunberg's school. For Greta Thunberg, the reactions are proof of the "ignorance of the climate crisis". Every Friday, she continues to skip school, to sit in front of the Parliament in Stockholm and demand policy action.

Translation by Jules Letambour

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2019/01/10/suede-la-jeune-greta-t...

Read about our coal-idiot-in-chief from top.

By Gus Leonisky at 11 Jan 2019 - 8:46am
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air conditioning is not green...

In many parts of Australia, air conditioners have gone from being a luxury to what many consider a necessity.

It's a trend that's being echoed around the world as billions of people in hot counties lift themselves out of poverty.

But the explosion in demand for the energy-intensive appliance is alarming climate change experts, who say we're heating the world up by cooling it down.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-12/rising-demand-for-air-conditionin...

This is a rubbish argument. Of course air conditioning ADDS TO THE WARMING OF THE PLANET. Like refrigerators, air conditionng REMOVE heat from one place (a room, a house, an office) by TRANSFERRING it to another place: the atmosphere. Is this simple enough? Do you need a diagram with colours? As well the process of transferring the heat is ENERGY INTENSIVE. This means it needs a lot of electricity. Should this electricity come from coal/gas/oil burning, this adds enormous amount of heat (CO2 + sun infrared energy) in the atmosphere....

By Gus Leonisky at 12 Jan 2019 - 6:47pm
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bats falling out of their trees...

Temperature records have been broken in Port Augusta and Tarcoola as South Australia suffers through an extreme heatwave.

Key points:

South Australia on a "code red" alert due to heatwave conditions
Temperature records broken in northern towns
Bats are falling out of trees in Adelaide due to heat, prompting warning: do not touch bats.

The Bureau of Meteorology said Tarcoola, in the state's north-west, reached 49 degrees Celsius at 3:20pm, its hottest temperature since records began in 1903.

Port Augusta — a much larger town — also broke its record with a top of 48.9C at 2:31pm.

The top temperature ever recorded in Australia was 50.7C in Oodnadatta in January 1960.

David Scicluna came to Port Augusta for a cool break from his regular job as owner of the Blinman Hotel, 200 kilometres north.

The temperature gauge at the pub topped out at 50C today.

"Everything's a bit harder to do — even a drink, you've got to drink it quicker because it gets hot pretty quickly," Mr Scicluna said.

"You don't want to be in the direct sunlight.

He is looking forward to visiting Adelaide tomorrow where it will be a "nice and cool" 40 degrees.

Bats falling out of trees in heat

The extreme heat has also taken its toll in Adelaide, with bats falling from trees in the Parklands.

It comes as the state's fire crews remain on alert during the heatwave.

The SA Government has issued a "code red" alert for the next three days, urging people to take care of the vulnerable during the hot weather.

The temperature in Adelaide peaked at 42.2 degrees.

Health authorities today issued a warning that large colonies of bats and pups, including those in the Adelaide Parklands and Botanic Park, are becoming heat stressed and falling to the ground.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-15/bats-fall-from-trees-in-south-aus...

Meanwhile:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), published in 2013 (4), featured five different time series of historical global OHC [ocean heat content] for the upper 700 m of the ocean. These time series are based on different choices for data processing (see the supplementary materials). Interpretation of the results is complicated by the fact that there are large differences among the series. Furthermore, the OHC changes that they showed were smaller than those projected by most climate models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) (5) over the period from 1971 to 2010 (see the figure).

Since then, the research community has made substantial progress in improving long-term OHC records and has identified several sources of uncertainty in prior measurements and analyses (2, 6–8). In AR5, all OHC time series were corrected for biases in expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data that had not been accounted for in the previous report (AR4). But these correction methods relied on very different assumptions of the error sources and led to substantial differences among correction schemes. Since AR5, the main factors influencing the errors have been identified (2), helping to better account for systematic errors in XBT data and their analysis.

Several studies have attempted to improve the methods used to account for spatial and temporal gaps in ocean temperature measurements. Many traditional gap-filling strategies introduced a conservative bias toward low-magnitude changes (9). To reduce this bias, Domingues et al. (10) used satellite altimeter observations to complement the sparseness of in situ ocean observations and update their global OHC time series since 1970 for the upper 700 m. Cheng et al. (2) proposed a new gap-filling method that used multimodel simulations to provide an improved prior estimate and error covariance. This method allowed propagation of information from data-rich regions to the data gaps (data are available for the upper 2000 m since 1940). Ishii et al. (6) completed a major revision of their estimate in 2017 to account for the previous underestimation and also extended the analysis down to 2000 m and back to 1955. Resplandy et al. (11) used ocean warming outgassing of O2 and CO2, which can be isolated from the direct effects of anthropogenic emissions and CO2 sinks, to independently estimate changes in OHC over time after 1991.

These recent observation-based OHC estimates show highly consistent changes since the late 1950s (see the figure). The warming is larger over the 1971–2010 period than reported in AR5. The OHC trend for the upper 2000 m in AR5 ranged from 0.20 to 0.32 W m−2 during this period (4). The three more contemporary estimates that cover the same time period suggest a warming rate of 0.36 ± 0.05 (6), 0.37 ± 0.04 (10), and 0.39 ± 0.09 (2) W m−2. [Note that the analysis in Domingues et al. (10) is combined with that in Levitus et al. (12) for 700 to 2000 m to produce a 0 to 2000 m time series.] All four recent studies (2, 6, 10, 11) show that the rate of ocean warming for the upper 2000 m has accelerated in the decades after 1991 from 0.55 to 0.68 W m−2 (calculations provided in the supplementary materials).

Multiple lines of evidence from four independent groups thus now suggest a stronger observed OHC warming. Although climate model results (see the supplementary materials) have been criticized during debates about a “hiatus” or “slowdown” of global mean surface temperature, it is increasingly clear that the pause in surface warming was at least in part due to the redistribution of heat within the climate system from Earth surface into the ocean interiors (13). The recent OHC warming estimates (2, 6, 10, 11) are quite similar to the average of CMIP5 models, both for the late 1950s until present and during the 1971–2010 period highlighted in AR5 (see the figure). The ensemble average of the models has a linear ocean warming trend of 0.39 ± 0.07 W m−2 for the upper 2000 m from 1971–2010 compared with recent observations ranging from 0.36 to 0.39 W m−2 (see the figure).

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6423/128

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By Gus Leonisky at 16 Jan 2019 - 2:30pm
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it was hotter when noah built his ark...

Our idiots in Kambra (we respect Canberra and its good people) ar still blind to the global warming problem. Our Noah's Ark society in chief Scummo, still believes Australia is round and is sending a replica ship to prove that the date (26/01/1788) is still the correct one. IDIOT and his idiotic minions...

Heat records began to tumble throughout South Australia earlier today.

So far, 19 locations have hit record temperatures including Adelaide Airport, Minlaton, Noarlunga, Snowtown and Port Lincoln.

Ceduna set a record for the second day in a row reaching 48.6C.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is tipping more records will be surpassed this afternoon.

The BOM has updated its forecast and predicts Port Augusta will reach 49C and Port Pirie 47C.

Earlier today, meteorologist Hilary Wilson said South Australians had already endured an uncomfortable night.

"We haven't broken any minimum temperature records but it was certainly a very warm night," Ms Wilson said.

"The warmest place in the state was Port Augusta which only got down to 32.2C just after 1:00am.

"Adelaide was not far behind that at all, so 31.1C just after 1:00am this morning as well.

"For most of the night we saw temperatures hovering around 32C or 33C in the city — so certainly a warm and uncomfortable night for most parts of South Australia."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/sa-heating-up-with-records-expect...

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and by the way I saw a dunny in the middle of the road...

Warmest ever start for January in Seattle

Hello, Juneary. This is the warmest first half of January on the Seattle record books.
Author: KING Staff

The new year kicked off with springlike conditions around Puget Sound. This is the warmest first half of January on record for Seattle.

According to the National Weather Service, the average high temperature at Sea-Tac was 51.8 degrees for the first 16 days of January 2019.

The weather records for Puget Sound date back to the 1890s.

https://www.king5.com/article/news/warmest-ever-start-for-january-in-sea...

Australia headed for hottest January on record

Australia's week-long heat wave has triggered power cuts around Melbourne as the midday temperature soared to 42.8 Celsius (109 Fahrenheit). Outdoor play at its tennis Open was suspended for a second day running.

Power authorities imposed sequential electricity cuts on households and businesses across Melbourne Friday as firefighters braced for wildfires across Australia's scorched southeast.

Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio conceded that the mainly coal and gas-fired power grid that supplies Melbourne and surrounding Victoria state, home to 6.3 million, was "not up to the task today."

Some 30,000 premises were switched off for up to two hours at a time in what Australia's Energy Market Operator called an "involuntary load reduction."

https://www.dw.com/en/australia-headed-for-hottest-january-on-record/a-47227287

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Meanwhile:

Dozens of accidents, including massive pileups blocking major motorways, have virtually brought the Russian capital to a standstill amid an extreme snowstorm that also temporarily disrupted air traffic in Moscow.

The Moscow authorities have deployed over 12,000 pieces of equipment to clear snow from roads and sidewalks across the city. Nevertheless, severe weather conditions in and around Moscow caused massive pileups on Saturday.

On the Simferopol highway, more than 50 vehicles were involved in several collisions, halting traffic in both directions for miles. Videos from the scene shared on social media show the extent of the damage. Luckily, no one died in the accidents, with only three injuries being reported. It took the authorities hours to clear the road before motorists could finally proceed.

https://www.rt.com/russia/449854-moscow-snowstorm-collisions-flights/

Cold meltwater running off Antarctica’s ice sheets and into the ocean could dampen the pace of global temperature rise, a new study suggests.

The research, published in Nature, finds that the rate of ice-sheet melt in a high-emissions scenario could see the oceans cooled by the influx of frigid water. This could knock as much as 0.4C off global temperature rise, the researchers say, potentially delaying exceeding the 1.5C and 2C Paris temperature limits by around a decade.

However, the study adds that the meltwater could have wider impacts on the Earth’s climate, increasing the formation of Antarctic sea ice, reducing rainfall in the southern hemisphere and increasing rainfall in the northern hemisphere. It could also cause warming of the ocean beneath the surface layer around the Antarctic coast, the researchers add, leading to further ice-sheet melt and additional sea level rise.

Scientists not involved in the research tell Carbon Brief that while the results are intriguing, some caution is warranted given that the study relies on a single climate model. It also uses a speculative ice-melt scenario and focuses on a region – the Southern Ocean and Antarctica – which climate models can struggle to simulate accurately.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/melting-antarctic-ice-could-slow-global-temp...

back on his green bicycle...

The Stop Adani Convoy

“I am 74 and acutely aware that our planet is hotter than when I was a boy, due to the burning of fossil fuels. Storms, droughts and bushfires are all the worse, as predicted 30 years ago. Yet the rate of burning of fossil fuels is still growing in 2019, as is the consequent heating. Now is not the time to give in to despair. Now is the time to take action.”

Bob Brown

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By Gus Leonisky at 9 Feb 2019 - 11:11am
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on the spectrum...

#mce_temp_url#Rarely have I identified with anything so strongly as when I listened to Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Nobel peace prize nominee, talking to Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Like her, I have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and it is rare that women like me appear in the media.

Yet Thunberg’s rise to prominence has been accompanied by a kind of thoughtlessness and intolerance that you might have expected society to have moved beyond. Some reactions expose how much ignorance and malice remains towards autistic and neurodivergent people, especially among those who don’t share their political views. Spiked’s editor, Brendan O’Neill, seized upon autistic traits Thunberg exhibits, such as her “monotone voice” and forthright manner, to liken her to a “cult member”, in an attempt to delegitimise her message.

In an even more spiteful example, a glib tweet by the Australian writer and lawyer Helen Dale called for Andrew Neil to interview Thunberg with such ferocity that it causes her to “have a meltdown on national telly”. This strongly implies that there are those who want not only to humiliate her but to cause her great emotional distress.

Autistic meltdowns are frequently misunderstood and brushed off as tantrums, but those who mischaracterise them as such are providing neurotypical rationalisations for behaviour they are unable to empathise with.

This is what it’s like. To be autistic is to live in a world where everything is too loud, too smelly and too bright, populated by people who say one thing and get angry when you fail to realise that they really meant something different. At the same time, your brain is struggling to keep track of and process the stimuli constantly bombarding it. Your brain and body then shut down and go into overdrive at the same time. Adrenaline courses through your veins. You are swallowed in a cloud of panic and cannot help but scream and sometimes lash out at others or even yourself.

But then, almost as soon as the meltdown erupts, it is over, and you are left with a mixture of exhaustion and intense shame. It can take days for the burnout to dissipate, but the shame is far longer lasting. It can colour the way that people see you and treat you.

To get satisfaction from an autistic person’s distress is callous. Like Thunberg, I believe autism can be a gift. It gives me drive and passion and the ability to see through rhetoric and think outside the box, as Thunberg told Robinson. Not every autistic person may feel this way – it’s a broad spectrum. Forty per cent of autistic people have symptoms of an anxiety disorder, such as selective mutism, with which Thunberg has been diagnosed. The same differences that can make autistic people unconventional and innovative thinkers make them vulnerable to bullying, which creates a vicious cycle of anxiety, meltdowns and abuse.

Before I received my diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, in 2016, it was as if a barrier existed between me and neurotypical people, making us unable to understand each other. Since then, I have been able to develop coping strategies, such as wearing noise-cancelling headphones to reduce the risk of having a meltdown, and I have realised the importance of using my own voice to illuminate the condition. I have also found comfort in learning that there are others, such as Thunberg, who live life on a different wavelength.

If there is any reason to take heart from the blinkered targeting of Thunberg, it is that her opponents are unable to criticise her solely on the grounds of her message. The power of this message exemplifies the value of an unconventional outlook and demonstrates why we need neurodiversity to help create a future worth living in.

• Charlie Hancock is an A-level student from North Yorkshire

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/greta-thunberg-aut...

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