Hottest January Ever

[Julia]

Love the cool change today in Melbourne.
Just refreshing. Might get a shower tomorrow.

I was on a camp all last week, got back Monday night. On Sunday and Monday the gums were dropping their branches. I heard 3 drop Sunday night. I think that may be a sign they were lacking water.?

The El Niño must have kicked in, though I haven't heard it reported.

Well now, Knobby, from Queensland I can tell you this has been the coolest, wettest summer in the 20 years that I've lived here. And I can further assure you the wet weather has not in the slightest modified the constant falling of branches and even more constant shedding of thousands of bloody gum leaves from my neighbour's oversized gum tree, filling my pool daily and covering all the paving and flower beds.

 

[DocK]

Well now, Knobby, from Queensland I can tell you this has been the coolest, wettest summer in the 20 years that I've lived here. And I can further assure you the wet weather has not in the slightest modified the constant falling of branches and even more constant shedding of thousands of bloody gum leaves from my neighbour's oversized gum tree, filling my pool daily and covering all the paving and flower beds.

+100 I'm wishing I could put in one of these:

 

[Ijustnewit]

Love the cool change today in Melbourne.
Just refreshing. Might get a shower tomorrow.

I was on a camp all last week, got back Monday night. On Sunday and Monday the gums were dropping their branches. I heard 3 drop Sunday night. I think that may be a sign they were lacking water.?

The El Niño must have kicked in, though I haven't heard it reported.

Also enjoying the cooler change today in Hobart , although the winds are around 60 - 100 KM an hour so a few fires have flared up again. The latest word out from the BOM is that the high temps are set to return from about next Tuesday onwards with another very hot frontal system combined with a similar high pressure system as the last one. Just can't wait for that , NOT !!

 

[Miss Hale]

+100 I'm wishing I could put in one of these:
View attachment 51298

Julia and DocK, we had the same problem with leaves in the pool at our last place and found a pool cover solved 90% of the problem (just one of those solar ones that sits on the surface of the water). The problem with that big glass one is that it would be way too hot here under that in summer

Cooler here today in Victoria too. I'm not lookin gto the forecast heat next week either. I heard someone from BOM on the TV the other day and he said to expect this hot weather more or less until the end of March

MTA: Actually is it glass or a flywire sort of thing

 

[DocK]

Julia and DocK, we had the same problem with leaves in the pool at our last place and found a pool cover solved 90% of the problem (just one of those solar ones that sits on the surface of the water). The problem with that big glass one is that it would be way too hot here under that in summer

Cooler here today in Victoria too. I'm not lookin gto the forecast heat next week either. I heard someone from BOM on the TV the other day and he said to expect this hot weather more or less until the end of March

MTA: Actually is it glass or a flywire sort of thing

Mesh - meant to let the breeze in, but keep the bugs and leaves etc out. When I win lotto I'm going to get some quotes

We'll probably put a cover over the pool in winter - but ours is just off our family room and provides a lovely view from its windows. Looking at a pool cover just wouldn't be the same.

 

[medicowallet]

Full item at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/causes.html

And a good chart of the rise from 1900 to 2000

Anyway we are probably going to have to start a thread for the hottest February and looks like also the hottest March may get a run too.

Yes, surely this is truly representative of dangerous global warming driven by manmade co2 emissions.

Although only if:

We disregard the little ice age, medieval warm period, and any other cooling or warming periods before 1900 which were not driven by man made co2 emissions.

Spare us the unscientific dogma... how much has CO2 in the atmosphere increased over the past 17 years, and how much has temperature increased over the past 17 years?

Sure, don't let local weather get in the way of a global warming debate..

MW

 

[IFocus]

Love the cool change today in Melbourne.
Just refreshing. Might get a shower tomorrow.

I was on a camp all last week, got back Monday night. On Sunday and Monday the gums were dropping their branches. I heard 3 drop Sunday night. I think that may be a sign they were lacking water.?

The El Niño must have kicked in, though I haven't heard it reported.

Around Perth trees are just stressed and dying unfortunately cannot say I see a lot of branches falling

 

[Julia]

+100 I'm wishing I could put in one of these:
]

I had a quote for a very similar structure: around $15K plus immense destruction in the erection process to the landscaping by bringing post digging machines etc across lawns and garden beds. The main posts have to be set in 1.5 metre deep concrete, so paving has to be taken up etc. Quite apart from the cost, which would have overcapitalised the house, I just didn't like the potential look of it amongst my otherwise attractive garden.

Julia and DocK, we had the same problem with leaves in the pool at our last place and found a pool cover solved 90% of the problem (just one of those solar ones that sits on the surface of the water).

OK, so how then did you remove the leaves from the pool cover, Miss Hale? We have the pool cover sitting on the water, covered all over with leaves: where to from there?
In my situation there is nowhere suitable to blow them off with a leaf blower, ditto hosing them off (even if running round three times a day with a hose was desirable).

Mesh - meant to let the breeze in, but keep the bugs and leaves etc out. When I win lotto I'm going to get some quotes

We'll probably put a cover over the pool in winter - but ours is just off our family room and provides a lovely view from its windows. Looking at a pool cover just wouldn't be the same.

It's not. In desperation, we have erected a large (full pool size) heavy duty tarp, slung by ropes and elastics from the patio roof on one side to the fence or trees on the other side. It is sloping downwards so that the leaves fall forward onto the paving so can be swept up, and the angle also allows rainwater to largely run off.

The plus is that it keeps the water cool in summer and actually keeps some of the heat in during winter with the ropes lowered so that the edges of the tarp rest against the pool coping. Further plus is that one tarp lasts for about 6 years and costs not much over $100 plus replacing the stretch ties annually.

The negative is that it looks awful and it's very inconvenient having to duck under ropes every time you walk around the pool.

There should be a height limit on trees in small suburban back yards imo.

 

[Smurf1976]

Also enjoying the cooler change today in Hobart , although the winds are around 60 - 100 KM an hour so a few fires have flared up again.

Mt Wellington recorded 124 km/h wind this afternoon so that's more than enough wind I think. It seems that if we're not being fried then we'll be blown away instead.

With those conditions it's no surprise that we have fires back again unfortunately. It's a few hundred meters from my property at the moment....

 

[chops_a_must]

There should be a height limit on trees in small suburban back yards imo.

Whilst acknowledging your inconvenience, trees in urban areas provide great benefit:

http://arts.monash.edu.au/ges/research/climate/streettrees.php

 

[Tink]

Love the cool change today in Melbourne.
Just refreshing. Might get a shower tomorrow.

I was on a camp all last week, got back Monday night. On Sunday and Monday the gums were dropping their branches. I heard 3 drop Sunday night. I think that may be a sign they were lacking water.?

The El Niño must have kicked in, though I haven't heard it reported.

I always thought certain gum trees had that problem with dropping branches, thats just what they did, not to mention, they explode in a fire.
I am enjoying the cool change too, and rain in store for the weekend, my garden will be smiling

 

[bunyip]

Julia and DocK, we had the same problem with leaves in the pool at our last place and found a pool cover solved 90% of the problem

Our pool was a constant hassle with leaves falling into it. So I sold the pool....that solved 100% of the problem!

 

[bunyip]

Well if you are not interested in debating me why are you in the thread at all.

Wasn’t aware that I owed you any explanation as to why I’ve posted on this or any other thread.
But since you’ve asked....I simply wanted to add a bit of balance to the thread by pointing out that a period of unusually hot/dry/wet/cold weather is no proof of climate change.

And I do not think that my own view based on observations over my lifetime (close to the land) are beliefs.

Of course not – your observations are proof of climate change!

It is not in concrete to the general community I agree, but we may have a problem most will agree, and to that we should be doing something about it for our future generations.

I’m not disagreeing with you. Yes, we may have a problem. From a health perspective alone it can’t be good for us to spew vast amounts of pollution into the air we breathe, quite apart from any longer term effect it may have on the climate.

And do not say we cannot, changing the community mindset, as is happening, will bring about change.

You may be interested to know that I have a solar hot water system and a solar power system that produces well in excess of my own power requirements.

 

[Ijustnewit]

Mt Wellington recorded 124 km/h wind this afternoon so that's more than enough wind I think. It seems that if we're not being fried then we'll be blown away instead.

With those conditions it's no surprise that we have fires back again unfortunately. It's a few hundred meters from my property at the moment....

Yes Smurf was thinking of you last night. We where sitting on the deck watching the fire creep it's way down the hill. It doesn't seem to have come much further overnight and looks like it's just smoldering . I can't believe they didn't try and completely put it out when we had those showers the other day. Maybe it's hard to access?

 

[bunyip]

The information in this link suggests that the past few thousand years have produced cyclones just as powerful or even more powerful than the worst cyclones we’ve experienced in the last century or so since records began.

Presumably some of these super cyclones were accompanied by massive rainfalls resulting in huge floods that may have exceeded the biggest floods on record.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s382613.htm

 

[Miss Hale]

OK, so how then did you remove the leaves from the pool cover, Miss Hale? We have the pool cover sitting on the water, covered all over with leaves: where to from there?
In my situation there is nowhere suitable to blow them off with a leaf blower, ditto hosing them off (even if running round three times a day with a hose was desirable).

We just used to sweep/rake them off before rolling the pool cover up when we wanted to use the pool. A few would end up in the pool but they were easily removed with the skimmer thing on a stick.

 

[Smurf1976]

Yes Smurf was thinking of you last night. We where sitting on the deck watching the fire creep it's way down the hill. It doesn't seem to have come much further overnight and looks like it's just smoldering . I can't believe they didn't try and completely put it out when we had those showers the other day. Maybe it's hard to access?

Yep, that's the hill I'm on but a bit further down.

In terms of access, there are some tracks up there that a vehicle could get through but a lot of it is harder to access (I go walking up there quite often during Winter). I was wandering why they can't just water bomb like crazy even on the calm days and put out, but I'm thinking that there must be some logic to what they are doing. Sure hope so.

On a positive note, the forecast for Saturday and Sunday is for a top of 17 degrees and showers. With a bit of luck that might actually put the fires out.

 

[Sdajii]

Bunyip: It would be astonishing if it was more than a few thousand years since there had been cyclones as strong as what we've seen in recent times (last 200 years or so).

People seem to think climate only started around 150years ago or that it was magically stagnant until then.

The world's largest wetland (Kakadu) wasn't even a wetland until a few thousand years ago.

Most of us will at some stage have heard of climate change so extreme that it created then flooded many times land bridges between Australia and PNG! That's some pretty freaking massive climate change! That has happened multiple times even in fairly recent (last couple hundred thousand years) times. Even if humans are having an impact, it is not doing anything appreciable compared to nature's normal fluctuations. Imagine if we did something so tremendous as creating a land bridge between Australia and PNG! Or radically turning Australia from a land of forest to a land of desert! Or flooding a massive area of land and making it a virtually unusable wetland. Thousands of these things go on all over the world very often, it's normal and natural, but a few hot days and everyone panics! Silly people

 

[Knobby22]

I always thought certain gum trees had that problem with dropping branches, thats just what they did, not to mention, they explode in a fire.
I am enjoying the cool change too, and rain in store for the weekend, my garden will be smiling

Yes, I believe you and Julia are correct. Hey, I'm a city dweller.

 

[bunyip]

Bunyip: It would be astonishing if it was more than a few thousand years since there had been cyclones as strong as what we've seen in recent times (last 200 years or so).

I agree.
I think the research is simply pointing out that we can look back many hundreds or even thousands of years in history and find climatic events that were well in excess of any that have happened in the last 150 years since we started keeping records.

People seem to think climate only started around 150years ago or that it was magically stagnant until then.

Yes, it's very naive thinking.
I still remember Kevin Rudd on TV, standing in front of a dry, desolate looking lake bed in western NSW, an animal skeleton clearly visible behind him. And with that ‘Would I lie to you?’ look on his face, claiming that the scene behind him was proof of man-made climate change.

Most of us will at some stage have heard of climate change so extreme that it created then flooded many times land bridges between Australia and PNG! That's some pretty freaking massive climate change! That has happened multiple times even in fairly recent (last couple hundred thousand years) times. Even if humans are having an impact, it is not doing anything appreciable compared to nature's normal fluctuations. Imagine if we did something so tremendous as creating a land bridge between Australia and PNG! Or radically turning Australia from a land of forest to a land of desert! Or flooding a massive area of land and making it a virtually unusable wetland. Thousands of these things go on all over the world very often, it's normal and natural, but a few hot days and everyone panics! Silly people

The dinosaur footprints at Lark Quarry, near the outback Queensland town of Winton, or more specifically, the desert country in which they’re found, is another example of dramatic climatic events that occurred millions of years before man ever started doing any of the things that are now being blamed for climate change.
The area was swamp and wetlands when the footprints were made. Anyone whose been out there and seen them, as I have a couple of times, will see no indication that this arid desert area was once a lush green wetlands environment.