http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/datasets/datasets.shtml

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/bushfires-and-climate/langswitch_lang/tk

Michael Mann is a principal scientist behind RealClimate.org.

However he is already been proven to be egregiously dishonest in his scientific writing and is of course the infamous author of the high-profile publication of the “hockey stick” graph which was then triumphantly ‘used’ as a key piece of supporting evidence in the third assessment report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001, which offered a stark warning to policymakers of the urgency for action on reducing greenhouse emissions and of course also in the notorious Al Gore deceit: “An Inconvenient Truth”.

How convenient!

Crikey readers can peruse his website here.
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

As for Dr. Richard Lindzen,
Wikipedia has some worthwhile info here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen

Please remember that scientists (I am one) tend to be very conservative people - they don’t like to declare anything that can’t be proved. The caution about attribution of this catastrophe comes from that conservatism: the link can’t be proven without doubt in this case.

But there is also common sense. Given the solid scientific understanding that rising CO2 is making the world hotter, it is sensible to conclude that an unprecedented event of hot weather is at least partly caused by the recent rise in CO2. Liz is making an intelligent and informed judgment in her article.

Can anyone direct me towards a truly reliable PRIMARY data source for temperatures in;

a/ Victoria
b/ Australia
c/ World

Ideally the data would be;

a/ where the PRIMARY source is credible
b/ purely HISTORICAL, rather than projected (10 / 50 / 100 years)
c/ up-to-date

I would be grateful for any help in tracking these sources down.

I think I still prefer Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann, along with numerous other peer reviewed authors, to the likes of the two you’ve mentioned.
Never mind. I enjoy the articles and commentary on realclimate.org and will continue to check it out.
Other readers can make up their own minds.

For years and years, forestry management experts have been recommending the use of controlled burning to reduce the dangerous buildup of combustible fuel (e.g. fallen leaves, twigs, dead grass) in bushland, particularly adjacent to inhabited areas. This common-sense advice has been ignored by the Victorian authorities, thanks to the misguided lobbying of environmentalists. Given many years’ buildup of combustible material, it is not surprising that with the hot, dry, windy conditions the fires were so intense that they could not be controlled, resulting in tragic loss of life and property and widespread destruction of trees. None of this would have happened if controlled burning had been carried out every two or three years.
It can be argued that the environmentalists are in effect the firebugs that have caused the recent devastation.

What Victorians should realise is that the threat of ferocious fire still prevails in those thousands and thousands of hectares of bushland ‘loaded’ with combustible material. Sadly, given that the Victorian authorities have ignored the fire control advice many times in the past, they can be expected to do so again, particularly if the environmentalists have their way.

My dilemma is probably encapsulated in your sentence: “Scientists have also warned against attributing a direct causal relation between global warming and the devastation of the Victorian bushfires.” No I am NOT a climate change denialist - rather someone who thinks this issue is SO important that we have to make sure our conclusions are based on good evidence and expert considerations so that they have the biggest impact on decisions made by politicians, business and all of us. As an example I challenge friends who cite a hot week as proof of climate change - I know you are not doing that but I hope you get my point that we need to make sure we highlight, promote and make accessible any well founded evidence so we can all learn.
On that note you also say: “In other words this drought is here to stay, meeting the CSIRO prediction that the pretty and lush garden state of Victoria will become desert within two decades.”
Can you provide us with a source or hyperlink to the document that outlines this shocking prediction? I’d really like to know more.
Let’s keep the information and the evidence flowing here … it’s such an important issue.

Most of the ‘challenging’ I’ve been involved with around the footy club / BBQ / water cooler is not with the ‘hot day=climate change’ , it’s with the ‘science =a crock.. and btw all greenies should be shot” bullies. I suggest that no amount of google-ready information sources will flick their switch and they will remain unreconstructed Boltsheviks for reasons best known to their analysts.

There is plenty of information at Brave New Climate, including this post
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/10/heatwave-update-and-open-letter-to-the-pm/

“Quoting RealClimate.org as a reliable source of information on climate science is like quoting Disneyland.com for reliable information on mouse behavior.”

Another summary of “Real Climate” was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said: “This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers.”

Well ?

The publication ‘Climate change in Victoria 2008 Summary produced by the CSIRO for DSE
(http://www.climatechange.vic.gov.au/CA256F310024B628/0/A97991409E91EFDECA25747F000CD954/$File/DSE+state+summary+WEB.pdf) tells us that by 2030 Melbourne’s average temperature is expected to increase by up to 1.2°, the number of days over 35° in Melbourne will increase from 9 to 20, rainfall will decrease by up to 9%, and there will be a 19% reduction in rainy days. There are expected to be 40% more extreme fire days by 2020.

It’s not quite ‘desert in two decades’ but with Bendigo’s average temperatures expected to resemble that of Ouyen’s by 2070, and Horsham’s rainfall expected to decrease to that currently experienced in Nhill, Liz Conor’s statement isn’t too far off the mark.

What is really a worry is that world carbon emissions are tracking higher than even the high growth scenarios envisaged by the IPCC, so the scenarios presented by CSIRO are likely to be under-estimates if things continue on as they are.

And unless the world takes serious emergency action to drastically cut our carbon emissions the conditions we experienced on Black Saturday are unlikely to be the worst we experience in our lifetimes. The Melbourne maximum temperature was ‘only’ 0.8° hotter than previously ever experienced – imagine the 2° plus warming we are on track for.

I am equally concerned with the lack of action and commitment by business and in particular Australian Federal and State Governments. My only response to this (other than increasing my blood pressure) is to want to access and gather lots of good quality information.

I’m not dismissing or challenging you Tim - I’m wanting to be part of the dissemination of good information as someone who hasn’t been involved directly up to this point.

I must have expressed myself badly.