Post by jody on Jan 13, 2013 9:12:48 GMT 10
Should stir the pot ;D
IT WAS WARMER IN 1790
(Appreciate if you would consider ‘sharing’ his important part of our history)
It’s been a big week for the pro-carbon taxer’s and the friends of Big Government.
After a few years of cooler than normal summers, with a few very warm days in Jan 2013, they have been able to push the unfolding economic mess arising from the carbon tax off the front pages- and they’ve been out dog whistling; “Global warming did it !! ............. just let us increase your taxes, submit to bigger government, pay more for your electricity, don't think for yourself -and we can control the temperature”
Take the following letter published in one of Sydney’s major papers following the temperature hitting 42.3 C in Sydney on 8th January;
“I am so angry I am in danger of starting a bushfire in my own head. I spent the day cowering in the mall with my fellow (non-airconditioned) Australians. This is climate change. It is here. It is real…….We have to live with the outcomes of our behaviour now. We can start the transition to renewables and try to keep the temperatures to this barely acceptable level or we can fry. It's as simple as that.”
Then there is the story of the fashion designer whom “sees direct parallels between human-induced global warming and Handel’s opera Semele" written in 1743, which is to be part of the Sydney Festival where models will “have climate-change slogans” pinned to their costumes as they parade down the catwalk in Sydney Town Hall.
And Sydney based leftist journalists have excitedly talked about the “extraordinary, sustained heatwave effecting the politics” of the carbon tax and climate change.
But I wonder if any of these people actually know that Sydney’s so-called ‘record hot day’ on Tuesday 8th Jan this year, was actually COOLER than the weather experienced by the First Fleeters in Sydney Cove in Dec 1790 ?
For while the mercury reached 42.3 C this Tuesday at Observatory Hill in Sydney – 222 years ago, at 2.20pm on the 27th Dec 1790, before the colony was 3 years old, the mercury hit a high of 42.8 C (109 F) measured at a location just stones-throw from Observatory Hill.
These temperatures are recorded by Watkins Tench (1758 –1833) in his book ‘A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson’ published in 1793. (and available to download for free from the internet).
Watkins Tench was British marine officer whom accompanied 88 male and 20 female convicts on the First Fleet ship the 'Charlotte'. After returning to Britain in 1793, Tench then fought in the Napoleonic Wars where after a naval battle he was taken prisoner by the French and imprisoned on a ship in Brest Harbor.
But the extreme heat wasn’t restricted to the 27th Dec 1790, the following day back in 1790 the temperature hit 40.3C (104.5 F) at 12.30pm – and later that summer (in Feb 1791) the temperature in Sydney hit 42.2 C (108 F).
Tench commented on the heat in February 1791 ;
“But even this heat (of 27th Dec 1790 - 42.8 C) was judged to be far exceeded in the latter end of the following February, when the north-west wind again set in, and blew with great violence for three days. At Sydney, it (the temperature) fell short by one degree of what I have just recorded (109F): but at Rose Hill, it was allowed, by every person, to surpass all that they had before felt, either there, or in any other part of the world. Unluckily they had no thermometer to ascertain its precise height.”
Tench speculated on the cause of the heatwave, and it wasn’t global warming or coal mining. Tench wrote;
“Were I asked the cause of this intolerable heat, I should not hesitate to pronounce, that it was occasioned by the wind blowing over immense deserts, which, I doubt not, exist in a north-west direction from Port Jackson, and not from fires kindled by the natives.”
Now global warming devotees may seek to dismiss Tench’s measurements and have then purged from our history, sent down a memory hole, or even ‘homogenised’ (revised downwards) - as the global warming texts & prophesies hold it impossible for it to have been warmer in Sydney back in 1790 than it is in globally warmed 2013.
However Tench’s meteorological recordings followed strict scientific procedure using a thermometer made by Jesse Ramsden, England’s leading scientist instrument maker. Tench also wrote on the accuracy of the measurements;
“This remark I feel necessary, as there were methods used by some persons in the colony, both for estimating the degree of heat, and for ascertaining the cause of its production, which I deem equally unfair and unphilosophical. The thermometer, whence my observations were constantly made, was hung in the open air, in a southern aspect, never reached by the rays of the sun, at the distance of several feet above the ground.”
It also worth noting that in 1790, Sydney Cove was surrounded by natural bushland, where modern day Observatory Hill in Sydney’s ‘The Rocks’ district, is now surrounded by the concrete, steel and glass of a modern city, not to mention the tens of thousands of air-conditioners pumping out hot air into streets, and the 160,000 cars & trucks that use Sydney Harbor Bridge daily and pass within 100 meter of Observatory Hill.
Further, the contemporaneous notes of the day back up the empirical measurements. Tench recorded the effects of the heat in Feb 1791;
“An immense flight of bats, driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead, or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere. Nor did the perroquettes, (parrots) though tropical birds, bear it better ; the ground was strewed with them in the same condition as the bats.”
Lieutenant-Governor David Collins (1756-1810), in his book ‘An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales’ published in 1798, also commented on the incredible effect the summer heat of 1790/91 had on the local wildlife:
"Fresh water was indeed everywhere very scarce, most of the streams or runs about the cove being dried up. At Rose Hill [Parammatta], the heat on the tenth and eleventh of the month, on which days at Sydney the thermometer stood in the shade at 105°F [40.6°C], was so excessive (being much increased by the fires in the adjoining woods), that immense numbers of the large fox bat were seen hanging at the boughs of trees, and dropping into the water… during the excessive heat many dropped dead while on the wing... In several parts of the harbour the ground was covered with different sorts of small birds, some dead, and others gasping for water."
Even Governor Arthur Philip noted the effects of the summer of 1790/91;
“From the numbers [of dead bats] that fell into the brook at Rose Hill [Parramatta], the water was tainted for several days, and it was supposed that more than twenty thousand of them were seen within the space of one mile.
(And the sad irony – think of the descendants of the bats and birds that survived the heatwave of 1790/91 - only to be sliced and diced in their thousands by great industrial wind turbines)
Finally, Watkins Tench concludes on climate change in Sydney back in 1793;
“My other remarks on the climate [of Sydney] will be short ; it is CHANGEABLE beyond any other I ever heard of......"
IT WAS WARMER IN 1790
(Appreciate if you would consider ‘sharing’ his important part of our history)
It’s been a big week for the pro-carbon taxer’s and the friends of Big Government.
After a few years of cooler than normal summers, with a few very warm days in Jan 2013, they have been able to push the unfolding economic mess arising from the carbon tax off the front pages- and they’ve been out dog whistling; “Global warming did it !! ............. just let us increase your taxes, submit to bigger government, pay more for your electricity, don't think for yourself -and we can control the temperature”
Take the following letter published in one of Sydney’s major papers following the temperature hitting 42.3 C in Sydney on 8th January;
“I am so angry I am in danger of starting a bushfire in my own head. I spent the day cowering in the mall with my fellow (non-airconditioned) Australians. This is climate change. It is here. It is real…….We have to live with the outcomes of our behaviour now. We can start the transition to renewables and try to keep the temperatures to this barely acceptable level or we can fry. It's as simple as that.”
Then there is the story of the fashion designer whom “sees direct parallels between human-induced global warming and Handel’s opera Semele" written in 1743, which is to be part of the Sydney Festival where models will “have climate-change slogans” pinned to their costumes as they parade down the catwalk in Sydney Town Hall.
And Sydney based leftist journalists have excitedly talked about the “extraordinary, sustained heatwave effecting the politics” of the carbon tax and climate change.
But I wonder if any of these people actually know that Sydney’s so-called ‘record hot day’ on Tuesday 8th Jan this year, was actually COOLER than the weather experienced by the First Fleeters in Sydney Cove in Dec 1790 ?
For while the mercury reached 42.3 C this Tuesday at Observatory Hill in Sydney – 222 years ago, at 2.20pm on the 27th Dec 1790, before the colony was 3 years old, the mercury hit a high of 42.8 C (109 F) measured at a location just stones-throw from Observatory Hill.
These temperatures are recorded by Watkins Tench (1758 –1833) in his book ‘A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson’ published in 1793. (and available to download for free from the internet).
Watkins Tench was British marine officer whom accompanied 88 male and 20 female convicts on the First Fleet ship the 'Charlotte'. After returning to Britain in 1793, Tench then fought in the Napoleonic Wars where after a naval battle he was taken prisoner by the French and imprisoned on a ship in Brest Harbor.
But the extreme heat wasn’t restricted to the 27th Dec 1790, the following day back in 1790 the temperature hit 40.3C (104.5 F) at 12.30pm – and later that summer (in Feb 1791) the temperature in Sydney hit 42.2 C (108 F).
Tench commented on the heat in February 1791 ;
“But even this heat (of 27th Dec 1790 - 42.8 C) was judged to be far exceeded in the latter end of the following February, when the north-west wind again set in, and blew with great violence for three days. At Sydney, it (the temperature) fell short by one degree of what I have just recorded (109F): but at Rose Hill, it was allowed, by every person, to surpass all that they had before felt, either there, or in any other part of the world. Unluckily they had no thermometer to ascertain its precise height.”
Tench speculated on the cause of the heatwave, and it wasn’t global warming or coal mining. Tench wrote;
“Were I asked the cause of this intolerable heat, I should not hesitate to pronounce, that it was occasioned by the wind blowing over immense deserts, which, I doubt not, exist in a north-west direction from Port Jackson, and not from fires kindled by the natives.”
Now global warming devotees may seek to dismiss Tench’s measurements and have then purged from our history, sent down a memory hole, or even ‘homogenised’ (revised downwards) - as the global warming texts & prophesies hold it impossible for it to have been warmer in Sydney back in 1790 than it is in globally warmed 2013.
However Tench’s meteorological recordings followed strict scientific procedure using a thermometer made by Jesse Ramsden, England’s leading scientist instrument maker. Tench also wrote on the accuracy of the measurements;
“This remark I feel necessary, as there were methods used by some persons in the colony, both for estimating the degree of heat, and for ascertaining the cause of its production, which I deem equally unfair and unphilosophical. The thermometer, whence my observations were constantly made, was hung in the open air, in a southern aspect, never reached by the rays of the sun, at the distance of several feet above the ground.”
It also worth noting that in 1790, Sydney Cove was surrounded by natural bushland, where modern day Observatory Hill in Sydney’s ‘The Rocks’ district, is now surrounded by the concrete, steel and glass of a modern city, not to mention the tens of thousands of air-conditioners pumping out hot air into streets, and the 160,000 cars & trucks that use Sydney Harbor Bridge daily and pass within 100 meter of Observatory Hill.
Further, the contemporaneous notes of the day back up the empirical measurements. Tench recorded the effects of the heat in Feb 1791;
“An immense flight of bats, driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead, or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere. Nor did the perroquettes, (parrots) though tropical birds, bear it better ; the ground was strewed with them in the same condition as the bats.”
Lieutenant-Governor David Collins (1756-1810), in his book ‘An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales’ published in 1798, also commented on the incredible effect the summer heat of 1790/91 had on the local wildlife:
"Fresh water was indeed everywhere very scarce, most of the streams or runs about the cove being dried up. At Rose Hill [Parammatta], the heat on the tenth and eleventh of the month, on which days at Sydney the thermometer stood in the shade at 105°F [40.6°C], was so excessive (being much increased by the fires in the adjoining woods), that immense numbers of the large fox bat were seen hanging at the boughs of trees, and dropping into the water… during the excessive heat many dropped dead while on the wing... In several parts of the harbour the ground was covered with different sorts of small birds, some dead, and others gasping for water."
Even Governor Arthur Philip noted the effects of the summer of 1790/91;
“From the numbers [of dead bats] that fell into the brook at Rose Hill [Parramatta], the water was tainted for several days, and it was supposed that more than twenty thousand of them were seen within the space of one mile.
(And the sad irony – think of the descendants of the bats and birds that survived the heatwave of 1790/91 - only to be sliced and diced in their thousands by great industrial wind turbines)
Finally, Watkins Tench concludes on climate change in Sydney back in 1793;
“My other remarks on the climate [of Sydney] will be short ; it is CHANGEABLE beyond any other I ever heard of......"