The Year of Unceasing Rain #5

On average, 2010 seems to have been as hot as 2005, which was probably the hottest year ever recorded, according to NOAA :-

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html

Whatever the other datasets show, 2010 was certainly one unusually warm year, definitely in the warmest. Yet what interests me more is that it was also the wettest.

Rain got dumped around the world, in large, emptying-the-bath type events. The heavens really opened. Sheets of rain fell suddenly out of the skies.

One report of serious rainfall and flooding (or storms and flooding) was followed by another, and another. It was subjectively a year of unceasing rain, even before the objective records were counted.

There was Central America of course. And parts of deep Europe. Then Pakistan, which nobody could have missed. There were major Typhoons causing untold havoc in East Asia. The Caribbean was not spared. Parts of the United States of America became swampland.

Even though the BBC have only just woken up to the fact that the East Coast of Australia is suffering unusually high levels of precipitation, torrential rain and flooding have been going on there for at least a month :-

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/hundreds-cut-off-by-deadly-floods-20101208-18pxi.html

It’s so significant, it’s even got its own Wikipedia page :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932011_Queensland_floods

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12173846

The BBC TV News anchormen and anchorwomen think that we can all breath a sigh of relief because the peak of the Brisbane flood wasn’t as bad as had been feared, but seriously, it’s laughable to try to find something positive about what’s happening.

Unfortunately, things could still continue to get worse, even in Brisbane.

Check the live satellite :-

Wake up, Ms and Mr BBC news correspondent ! This is a major, persisting crisis, and it’s not over yet.

Australia’s Non-Green Stimulus

Back in the heady, long-gone days of 2009, The Oil Drum web log hosted a discussion about Australia being highly vulnerable to oil shortages :-

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5477

“Aleklett: Australia highly vulnerable to oil shortages : June 11, 2009 : ASPO International president, Professor Kjell Aleklett of the Global Energy Systems group at Uppsala University has been in Australia over the past week, presenting lectures in Adelaide and Sydney on peak oil…warned that Australia will be one of the first countries hit hard by oil shortages as oil production peaks within the next three years. Kjell Aleklett, a physicist from Uppsala University in Sweden, says Australia’s relatively underdeveloped public transport system leaves the country more vulnerable to a downturn in energy production. “Australia is very sensitive to such developments,” Professor Aleklett told the Herald. “Much of your industry and transit is dependent on oil, and supplies will decline.” Professor Aleklett addressed the NSW [New South Wales] electric car task force and the Federal Government’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics yesterday…”

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Don’t Do It, Kevin !

Dear Kevin Rudd, current Prime Minister of all Australia,

Of all the meaningless things to stake your premiership on, it has to be that ridiculous notion of Carbon Trading.

You realise that it won’t raise a single dollar for the de-Carbonisation of your appallingly ginormous national Energy and Transport sectors, don’t you ?

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The Copenhagen Diaries

Grist Magazine asks “How foerked are we ?” in the promotional picture for their Copenhagen Diaries.

For Professor Corinne Le Quere, from the British Antarctic Survey and East Anglia University, the answer is “very” :-

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26375158-401,00.html

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Kevin Rudd versus Rupert Murdoch

A huge round of applause for Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Prime Minister, for lambasting, basting and roasting the Climate Change deniers :-

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735769.htm

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Sterner Stuff : Climate Change in the First World

I’m starting to read Nicholas Stern’s new book “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet : How to Manage Climate Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity.” No hint of megalomania, grandstanding or grandiosity, there, then.
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