"Extreme" weather? You mean like this?

[marchesarosa]

Medieval storms and changing coastlines
by Teresa Nielson-Hayden

I’ve visited Rye in Sussex. It’s a charming little town that used to be one of the Cinque Ports, and overlooks what used to be Romney Marsh. At any rate, that’s what I was told when I was there; and when I climbed up on top of Rye’s church tower, I could see green fields stretching off in all directions. It is therefore a bit unnerving to discover how violently all that happened.

From the Guardian, on the great storms of 1287:

There were two “great storms” in 1287. One was on the east coast: it killed hundreds of people in England and drowned thousands on the other side of the North Sea. This disaster was similar to the 1953 flood, when an extreme low pressure coinciding with a high tide caused a storm surge.The other storm, on England’s south coast, must have been ferocious, because in a single night it fundamentally changed the geography. The harbour at Hastings was destroyed, the old town of Winchelsea, which was already under attack from the sea, was abandoned, and the coastline realigned.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the damage was that the thriving port of New Romney was turned into a landlocked town. Massive quantities of shingle from Dungeness, along with mud and soil, inundated the town, completely filled the harbour, and left New Romney nearly a mile from the sea.

The river Rother, which ran through the town, was stopped up by the storm and found a new outlet to the sea at Rye, 15 miles away, a course that the river still takes. In New Romney (a Saxon name, so not very new) there is still visible evidence of this extreme event. It is a draw for archaeologists, because the silt and gravel covered and preserved the town.

Visitors to the parish church of St Nicholas, the only surviving building from the period, have to step down into the church. There are still stains on the pillars marking the level of the flood.

more here
nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013189.html

[aubrey]

I don't think the argument is that it's never happened before, just that it could happen more often and more extremely. Especially in countries where they are more prone to this sort of thing, and where they don't have good defences.

[ncsonde]

Objective statistical analysis shows that it hasn't happened more often, or more extremely. Apart from a barely significant rise in the frequency of cat 5 hurricanes in the past ten years, which is entirely predictable given any slight increase in the temperature of the Pacific, whatever the cause. Otherwise, the incidence of extreme weather conditions - droughts, floods - is entirely within the normal range. There's been a higher incidence of hot years since 1980, of course; but even that is entirely predictable and hence normal. You merely have to correlate global temp with solar activity.

[marchesarosa]

Aubrey apparently believes, like many others, that because lots of "extreme weather" news now fills our sitting rooms all the time, it means there is more of it.

Sad but true.

[aubrey]

I didn't say that it is happening more. Read again. See what's there, rather than what you expect. You're both right buggers for that, you know.

[marchesarosa]

From Jo Nova
Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heat-wave

The media are in overdrive, making out that “the extreme heat is the new normal” in Australia. The Great Australian Heatwave of January 2013 didn’t push the mercury above 50C at any weather station in Australia, yet it’s been 50C (122F) and hotter in many inland towns across Australia over the past century. See how many are in the late 1800′s and early to mid 1900′s. You can’t blame those high records on man made global warming. [feel free to post some old records of your own and the source reference we can check and we will update the map]


see updated map here
joannenova.com.au/2013/01/australia-was-hot-and-is-hot-so-what-this-is-not-an-unusual-heat-wave/

[marchesarosa]

See this well known poem about "a sunburnt country" written in 1904

My Country
by
Dorothea Mackellar
(1885 - 1968)



The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar





Makes you wonder why someone would write a poem like this back in 1904, if these "extremes" are so recent?

[aubrey]

Back to the insults again. Not unexpected, though. Maybe you're just in a bad mood.

[ncsonde]

No insults - just accurate reportage. It was you yourself who claimed you knew nothing about AGW, remember? Oh - apart from the vitally important fact that everyone who disagrees with the AGW theory is a right-winger, that is. Mind you, how you come by this encyclopedic awareness of everyone's ulterior motivation, but remain clueless about what the debate is actually about, is intriguing.

[admin]

Jan 22, 2013 7:28:51 GMT aubrey said:

Back to the insults again. Not unexpected, though. Maybe you're just in a bad mood.

I have only found one post that needed to be removed and I removed it. Just like to remind everyone that the WHOLE post goes.

[ncsonde]

"I don't know about AGW"

That looks like an admission of ignorance to me. Nothing to be ashamed of, so I fail to see how it can be an insult reminding someone of it - especially if they're in the process of making an arrogant fool of themselves by pretending that they do with a load of totally false and undeserved "buts". And if someone goes to the trouble of correcting someone's errors that's not an insult either, but an assistance.

Are you now going to remove all those posts of Aubrey's where he's falsely accused people of being "rightwingers" with a hidden agenda to deceive people, presumably for their own nefarious purposes? It's certainly as much of an "insult" as ignorant, particularly when it's a falsehood, as he's been told many times before, and particularly when it's intended to be.

[jean]

Jan 22, 2013 16:36:31 GMT ncsonde said:

Are you now going to remove all those posts of Aubrey's where he's falsely accused people of being "rightwingers" with a hidden agenda to deceive people, presumably for their own nefarious purposes?

Not unless this sort of thing is similarly removed - which so far I don't think it has been:

Jan 17, 2013 14:35:16 GMT ncsonde said:

The AGW thesis suits the Left and liberal politicians perfectly - right or wrong, they see it as an ideal opportunity...this opportunistic power-grab...

[ncsonde]

Jan 22, 2013 17:42:54 GMT jean said:

Not unless this sort of thing is similarly removed - which so far I don't think it has been:

Jan 17, 2013 14:35:16 GMT ncsonde said:

The AGW thesis suits the Left and liberal politicians perfectly - right or wrong, they see it as an ideal opportunity...this opportunistic power-grab...

Mine is factually accurate, that's the difference, as I've demonstrated to you before with quotes from their own mouths: It doesn't matter whether the AGW thesis is right or wrong, or whether we fiddle with the science a bit to make people believe it's worse than it is, in fact it doesn't matter what the science says about it, full stop - whatever the case, it's a chance for us to do x,y,and z in pursuit of our own political and economic agenda...

This is genuinely how people like Clinton, Blair, the EU etc think. As a wannabe Green politician, you know it as well as anyone.

Aubrey on the other hand is totally unable to demonstrate his attempted insult whatsoever, other than to point out that Nigel Lawson is a Conservative, and that a few "rightwing" newspaper columnists have had the temerity to question the political manouevrings of the liberal-Left by claiming to take the AGW thesis seriously.

Apart from that, the presumption of the insult is completely wrong. It's intended to imply that criticisms of AGW are not to be taken seriously on rational, scientific grounds, because they come from people on the right of the political spectrum, who as we all know are notorious for despoiling the environment and despise any initiative to protect it. Thus critiques of AGW are not only worthless objectively, whatever their scientific rationale, they're also morally offensive.

The whole argument is ridiculous, as anyone with any interest in understanding the world will immediately grasp. It's also got things absurdly back to front even on its own terms. The historical truth is the greatest despoilers of the environment in the interests of economic enrichment have been societies of the far-Left. There were no Sierra Clubs or National Trusts or EPAs in Aubrey's beloved Soviet Union, or the Iron Curtain countries. None in North Korea or China now. The most polluted and polluting countries on earth are of the left. On the other hand, conservatives are conservative for sound rational economic reasons. It is not in the interests of any capitalist enterprise to destroy or devalue the resources that they depend on to grow and prosper.

[ncsonde]

Then of course there was that other hero of you socialist utopians, Saddam Hussein. The Kuwaitis and Marsh Arabs were immensely impressed with his noble concern for the environment, weren't they? And those other great leaders of the Socialist Ba'ath Party - Bashar al-Assad and the much lamented Muammar Gaddafi: how will the Green movement survive without their inspiring leadership?

Give me Jimmy Goldsmith any day.

[jean]

Jan 23, 2013 12:54:52 GMT ncsonde said:

Mine is factually accurate, that's the difference...

No it isn't.

...as I've demonstrated to you before with quotes from their own mouths: It doesn't matter whether the AGW thesis is right or wrong, or whether we fiddle with the science a bit to make people believe it's worse than it is, in fact it doesn't matter what the science says about it, full stop - whatever the case, it's a chance for us to do x,y,and z in pursuit of our own political and economic agenda...

The only part of this that does have some smidgeon of truth in it is this:

...we fiddle with the science a bit to make people believe it's worse than it is...

and even that is based on a genuine belief on the part of those doing the fiddling that things really are very bad and people must be made to pay attention.

It's a very foolish and misguided strategy, and I and all the GPEW people I know would be absolutely opposed to it.

It is also quite true that people on the 'right', like Delingpole, have indulged in electoral skulduggery on behalf of the anti-AGW lobby.

I started a thread about that, but the marchesa persisted in thinking it was about something else.

If you can find me an example of a Green Party member who admired Saddam Hussein I'll be interested, but I won't regard them as typical. Many people of all political persuasions thought the invasion of Iraq was at worst illegal and at best unwise, but that's not the same thing as admiring its leader.