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Post by tobyglyn on Feb 9, 2009 14:16:48 GMT
Very quick: "This is climate change. This is what the scientists told us would happen. All the climatic events of the past 10 years have led inexorably to this. And this is just the beginning of something that will truly, if unaddressed, overwhelm us. As the events of Saturday showed, the consequences of climate change will make the financial crisis look like a garden party. Yet there is a synchronicity here that must not be missed. The extraordinary economic measures for which the financial crisis is calling provide a perfect opportunity to fund the energy revolution for which the crisis of climate change is calling. If the Government does not seize it, then the terrifying world into which we were plunged on Saturday will become the world we will have to inhabit." www.smh.com.au/environment/scientists-warned-us-this-was-going-to-happen-20090209-82bx.html
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Post by woodstove on Feb 9, 2009 14:46:35 GMT
Ah, the urban heat argument, again . Many research has already been done on that, and, as far as I know, they have only shown a minor effect (0.05-0.1 C at most as far as I can remember) on the measured temperatures. (You should see differences between stations close to urban areas and in rural areas, and determine if this has a significant effect on the global average.) You mistake the SMALL global temperature adjustments for the UHI effect for the actual daily, real heat island effect. If you read the literature put out by the folk who make the temperature series you will know what I mean. The heat Island effect during the heat wave in Melbourne was clearly in the order of 2C. Warm events exaggerate the heat Island effect. But for calculating averages, you need to account for the many days where there is zero UHI effect. Such as cloudy days, winter etc. So over a whole year, the UHI effect is estimated at something like 0.1C/decade warming. But, you totally mistake this for the actual, daily effect on a warm day. Have I made myself clear? Hi Kiwi. Not sure where you got the idea that the urban heat island effect is less in winter than in summer? I have often heard, and observed, the opposite. Winter readings in major U.S. cities can be 5 degrees Celsius higher (particularly overnight) than in rural locations 15 miles away. You're right to assert that the IPCC and Hansen and Gore downplay the UHI to an ABSURD degree, pun intended. Back more on topic: Only rural stations should be compared when it comes to temperature maximums. The fact that the AGW movement is willing to exploit the tragedy of the Australian fires (and fear that fire naturally engenders) tells you something about the quality of its moral agenda. Huge, serious fires have always been part of nature, and always will. And yes, absolutely, they are worsened in many cases now by undergrowth being allowed to grow through (temporary, misguided) fire suppression. I send my heartfelt condolences to any in Australia who may have been personally affected by the devastation caused by these fires.
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Post by Acolyte on Feb 9, 2009 22:10:30 GMT
Victoria is a bit shell-shocked at the levels - 173 dead & counting.
As is usual the people at street level have opened their hearts. One radio program has a telethon (ring in & donate money to pay for necessities) & has $250,000 in 2 hours, charities are at overwhelm level for clothes, blankets, all kind of household appliances, & the Red Cross is frantically trying to fit in the people who have come to donate blood. Normally they get 15,000 a month - they had 13,000 just yesterday & are making appointments for the weeks to come - burn victims require ongoing supply.
I've seen a lot of fires here, I can't recall any that have wiped out entire towns before this. Damaged, yes, wiped out totally, no.
To listen to the green movement using the deaths to promote their climate change agenda is sickening. Bastards have no morals at all, it's all about power.
Personally I'd like to run into one of these arseholes that are using tragedy to further their political agendas. Maybe we could get them onto a fireline?
But the people of Australia bring tears to my eyes at their response. It makes it hard to understand the day-to-day pettiness when you see them magnificent like this.
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Post by tobyglyn on Feb 10, 2009 3:26:23 GMT
Ah, not climate change but instead it's our abortion laws. "The evangelical church's leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, claimed he had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with "a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb"." Sad, sad stuff www.smh.com.au/national/pastors-abortion-dream-inflames-bushfire-tragedy-20090210-832f.html
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Post by Ratty on Feb 10, 2009 4:29:05 GMT
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Post by kiwistonewall on Feb 10, 2009 5:05:58 GMT
Woodstove
No, I was pointing out that the UHI effect is either there or not, depending on weather conditions. It isn't a constant. Sometimes it is zero, sometimes a couple of degrees.
When talking about "yearly averages" it is small. But during a strong heat event, it can be massive over jsut a few hours!. Socold & others were confusing small annual, UHI effects with one-off daily effects.
But which days, times and seasons display an UHI effect, and when it is zero depend on cloud cover & a host of other factors. Given a hot sun beating down on a bitumen & concrete, the temperature rapidly rises. Nights following sunny days can be warmer as heat is radiated back.
So an annual effect of (say) .01C/decade or whatever isn't relevant to a daily 2C effect.
You can't just subtract 0.01 (or whatever) from a daily Tmax and say that that is the adjusted daily temperature. You can do that for a long term average. But for any particular day, you'd need to look at the conditions (even better, measure a cross section across the city from one side to the other.
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Post by kiwistonewall on Feb 12, 2009 10:10:32 GMT
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Post by Acolyte on Feb 12, 2009 12:01:14 GMT
So... rather than address the issue of almost non-existent fuel reduction burns being increased back to the levels used by the native population for 40,000+ years to reduce bushfire intensity, Premier Brumby has decided to price houses out of reach of any normal person. He is going to insist that houses be made fireproof.
Now how do you do that when the green policies of 'stay out of the dangerous bush & let nature do its thing' bring along fires that rage at blast furnace temperatures because they are so hot they self-generate their own winds to drag themselves across the bush, crowning out up to hundreds of metres ahead of the main blaze & sending a blizzard of embers & burning leaves ahead iof the brunt of the fire, and that travel at speeds that only a car on a highway can outrun.
The solution is not to mandate fireproof housing - that's not only hard to do, it's hard to define in the first place. What we need to do is bring back the forest management. After Ash Wednesday, the bushies were listened to & until 1993 the fuel reduction burns were performed religiously.
By 1995 they had dropped to about 10% of their previous levels & as the years passed the greenies insistence on letting nature take its course (& ignoring totally that the bush has had upwards of 50,000 years to adapt to fire management from the Aborigines)
As those years passed, the debris & undergrowth built up, year by year, increasing the severity of blazes by vastly increasing the amount of dry & rotting vegetation available.
When the fire came, we got blast-furnace-hot burns, raging at upwards of 100kms an hour actross the landscape. It might have been a cold burn, sweeping in the heat across less than a tenth of the acreage, moving at speeds barely that of the winds, leaving the ground beneath unsterilised & giving the wildlife a chance to get out of the way.
Because of the greens, who, on Monday, while people were still burning in towns now vanished, started their political agenda of blame & finger pointing, we lost vast areas of bush, thousands of animals, 800+ homes, at least 4 complete towns & around 200 lives - & they haven't yet found all the bodies.
Australian Heatwave is NOT a sign of climate change - we've had this for at least the past couple of hundred years. the severity of this tragedy can be laid directly at the doors of city dwellers who, in spite of their total ignorance of the countryside, decide they can read a book & KNOW what is best for the world & use their money & influence to make everyone else toe their line.
They also don't go on fire lines - they rarely leave the city - their Toorak Tractors never see mud & so they feel threatened by nature & want us all to join them in their concrete prison.
People have died before because of the ignorance of these city dwellers - now they have died again. Strangely it is never the city dwellers who die for their causes - its those who are hamstrung by the ignorant policies forced on them by those with no concept of the lives of those who prefer not to live in the city. /rant
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Post by nautonnier on Feb 12, 2009 12:02:48 GMT
I can assure you that in Central London there is ALWAYS an urban heat island effect - but then London takes 'urban' to a rather high level. This effect is common knowledge and you will hear it mentioned almost daily in weather forecasts which split central London temperatures from the outer suburbs in almost all weather conditions and every season.
On another point... Just a simple question for the Australian members: the Australian bush fires are and always have been common summer occurrences to the extent that some plants have adapted to them - so that is a LONG time. Here in Florida severe storms are common too but houses are built with 'safe rooms' effectively boxes of prestressed concrete with a steel door that you can shelter in if necessary. Similarly, in the midwest 'tornado alley' houses are built with tornado shelters - normally cellars with storm doors. Why does no one have fire-shelter rooms or cellars in Australia ? I have no doubt that the safe-rooms in buildings here would be sufficient if buried and with a fireproof door.
So by all means have wooden houses in the bush (just like we have people with wooden houses on stilts on the beach side with no protection from storms) but have a nearby fire proof shelter large enough for the family, pets and important documents.
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Post by julianb on Feb 20, 2009 6:26:15 GMT
What I and a lot of other people didn't realise is the difference between a 'normal' bushfire and this Firestorm. In an ordinary bushfire, a well prepared house that has been hosed, and its surroundings, is sufficient cover until the front has passed, and then spot fires can be put out. My two grandsons did just this in the Blue Mountains and saved a neighbors house a few years ago. In a firestorm, the radiant heat can ignite anything flammable from up to 200 metres, from eyewitness reports. Vehicles and pumps and timber explode before the firefront, the air is used up and interiors of homes caught fire from radiant heat through windows even with the glass intact. Shelters would need to have their own air or oxygen in tanks, be buried far enough to not heat up inside to unlivable temps. and be able to escape from even if damaged by the heat. The lack of oxygen was such that intact trees with theirs leaves were in places converted to charcoal, "with every leaf and twig stiff and black, pointing in one direction" The 'ember attacks like hail' were likely these carbonated trees disintegrating and carrying glowing coals ahead of the front. I have certainly re-thought my defence strategy, if the wind is high and the temp over 40c, I'll get out early, if not able, jump in the dam under an upturned boat! A week after the Victorian fires, I had to light the first fire in my fireplace to keep warm, as the evening temp dropped to 12c ! and I am 600 miles north of the fires
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Post by Acolyte on Feb 20, 2009 12:33:31 GMT
There is a solution to not having to do most of those things - vote to stop the Greenies having any say in Bush Management. Fuel reduction burns are mandatory. Bushfires are a normal part of the Australian ecperience & surprisingly are normally very survivable.
In 1983 we had Ash Wednesday. For 10 years after we did Fuel Reduction burns across Victoria. No major fires although we had plenty of natural burns.
When I left Dept of Conservation, Forests & lands in 1993, the Greenies were just getting control of the 'conservation' side - fuel reduction began to have its own reduction from that time.
The greenies kept saying ' the bush has been there a long time - let Nature do her thing' - totally neglecting to tell the city dwellers about how for 50,000 years the Aborigines had been managing the bush with fire.
A couple of weeks back, Nature 'did her thing' and 200+ people paid with their lives.
Is there any reason why the outspoken & manipulative Greenies should NOT be hauled before court to answer charges of at the least, Manslaughter? These are the people who, on the Monday after the worst of the weather & fires, while people were still literally dying in their homes, got on the news to tell us all how it was all the fault of the Government for failing to react severely enough to the global warming crisis.
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Post by nautonnier on Feb 20, 2009 12:59:00 GMT
I would have thought that the shelters would only need to be relatively air-tight and large enough for the number of occupants to be able to survive on the air in the shelter for the period of the passage of the fire. That would be a little safer than your upturned boat ;-)
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Post by jorgekafkazar on Feb 20, 2009 17:55:07 GMT
I would have thought that the shelters would only need to be relatively air-tight and large enough for the number of occupants to be able to survive on the air in the shelter for the period of the passage of the fire. That would be a little safer than your upturned boat [cut] The answer is to clear the brush around the houses for 100 meters or more before it catches fire. Hamburg, 1943: "...A vast suction was in this way created so that the air 'stormed through the streets with immense force, bearing upon it sparks, timber and roof beams and thus spreading the fire still further and further till it became a typhoon such as had never before been witnessed, and against which all human resistance was powerless.' Trees three feet thick were broken off or uprooted, human beings were thrown to the ground or flung alive into the flames by winds which exceeded 150 miles an hour. The panic-stricken citizens knew not where to turn. Flames drove them from the shelters, but high-explosive bombs sent them scurrying back again. Once inside, they were suffocated by carbon-monoxide poisoning and their bodies reduced to ashes as though they had been placed in a crematorium, which was indeed what each shelter proved to be." www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWfirestorm.htmwww.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n4p15_Crowell.htmlCertainly, "relatively air-tight" is necessary but it is not sufficient. Special steel doors were, in fact, used on German shelters. Air gets sucked right out of shelters by the vacuum created during a firestorm. People even passed out on the street from hypoxia. If the shelter withstood loss of air or monoxide poisoning, there was the heat to deal with, temperatures as high as 1500°F, often sufficient to collapse the roof.
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Post by ron on Feb 20, 2009 18:36:54 GMT
Dude, some people survived in their basements. I saw them interviewed. They said the floor above them burst into flames. After the fire passed they scrambled out of the burning building. They were being interviewed in an area that was completely leveled.
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Post by nautonnier on Feb 21, 2009 2:58:18 GMT
I would have thought that the shelters would only need to be relatively air-tight and large enough for the number of occupants to be able to survive on the air in the shelter for the period of the passage of the fire. That would be a little safer than your upturned boat [cut] The answer is to clear the brush around the houses for 100 meters or more before it catches fire. Hamburg, 1943: "...A vast suction was in this way created so that the air 'stormed through the streets with immense force, bearing upon it sparks, timber and roof beams and thus spreading the fire still further and further till it became a typhoon such as had never before been witnessed, and against which all human resistance was powerless.' Trees three feet thick were broken off or uprooted, human beings were thrown to the ground or flung alive into the flames by winds which exceeded 150 miles an hour. The panic-stricken citizens knew not where to turn. Flames drove them from the shelters, but high-explosive bombs sent them scurrying back again. Once inside, they were suffocated by carbon-monoxide poisoning and their bodies reduced to ashes as though they had been placed in a crematorium, which was indeed what each shelter proved to be." www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWfirestorm.htmwww.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n4p15_Crowell.htmlCertainly, "relatively air-tight" is necessary but it is not sufficient. Special steel doors were, in fact, used on German shelters. Air gets sucked right out of shelters by the vacuum created during a firestorm. People even passed out on the street from hypoxia. If the shelter withstood loss of air or monoxide poisoning, there was the heat to deal with, temperatures as high as 1500°F, often sufficient to collapse the roof. I actually have spent quite a lot of time in basement shelters in Germany that were built in 1936 with steel doors resembling the doors in submarines. My house had a cellar and each room had a similar bombproof steel door. Even new build houses had cellars with similar doors. The problem is the standard decision based on probabilities - I am not paying for that - how often do forest fires come through here? I was tempted to think that way here when my house was being built; then 8 weeks after moving in we had 4 hurricanes one after the other 14 days apart - the first hurricanes to have hit this area. So a 'safe room' was a good idea. Clearing the brush and having relatively fireproof houses is obviously best - but our green friends get upset at both of those ideas. So build a cellar with a nice steel door - you can put in a wet bar and a beefy sound system and no-one will know from outside. In the rare case of a fire - you can repair to the basement and have a firestorm party.
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