Climate Blog
Global Warming - Humans are NOT
to blame
First of all I wish to reject
the argument that we human beings are responsible for the warming up of the
earth, as I strongly insist it is a natural occurrence since the birth of the
planet. We are going through a natural cycle and this earth is warming up
and no one can deny this.
However the earth has been
through cooling periods such as Ice Ages and it will occur again in the future
after the warming period has peaked. There is nothing we humans can do to
stop the warming of the earth because it is part of a natural cycle. Even
if we did not clear lands, build dams and so on, and even if we try to reduce
greenhouse gases, global warming will still have occurred anyway.
We humans have cleared land
on the earth ever since the planet was born, and it is a natural part of the
life of the earth, and it's okay to clear land as long
as it is in the best interests of the environment and economy.
The governments are very
correct to build dams, farms, nuke mines and roads because it is trying to
contribute to the national economy and it is acting in the best interests of
humans and the environment.
If rainforests and snow is
the thing of the past due to global warming, so be it but they will eventually
come back when the earth cools again. Again there is nothing human beings
can do to prevent the earth from warming or cooling down because the earth is
designed to both warm up and to cool down.
No one can prevent floods,
cyclones, droughts, bushfires or even thunderstorms of all kinds. They
have occurred since the earth was born and as much as we don't like them we
cannot stop them.
I want everybody to
understand that we humans cannot stop global warming or earth cooling because
it is just a natural occurrence of it happening since the birth of the planet.
Cold snaps I’ve experienced
As
a native North Queenslander who was born and lived in Ayr my entire lifetime,
the recent and latest cold snap have really hit me very hard with a minimum
temperature of 3 on Friday June 2000, the lowest I have ever felt in Ayr in my
life.
However
I have been in much worse cold snaps than this one. 3 years back, I went
through 4 days of below zero temperatures in a row in Darling Downs and Ipswich
with the lowest being minus two in late June 1997 with a rare day of
snow. I saw some sleet east of Dalby during a brief snow storm, and the
maximum was only 8 degree at Toowoomba as I was travelling to Brisbane.
I
wasn't prepared for it that time because I was a visitor from North Queensland
visiting South Queensland, I thought "Nah don't you worry about
that!" I assumed that Dalby would be as cold as Blackwater in central Queensland which would only go down to 3. I
thought Central and south Queensland always share the same climate.
One
day as I was walking down the street in Dalby it was 19 (warm by Dalby's
standard) and it was cloudy, I was well at the time. However someone in
Dalby told me, as I saw the cloud clear she heard on the WIN Local Weather,
that it would be cold as a high of 1041 developed in the Bight and two east
coast lows develop east of Sydney. Sure I knew it will get cooler, but
not cold. I assumed probably 5 or 6 or at least 3 degree.
As
I prepared for the night, I could feel the temperature dropping, I thought
"nah, don't you worry about that. It will probably go to 3." but it
got colder and colder and I could see icy dew (named frost) on grass, then I
thought maybe 1 or 2 or 0. Alas I got a shock! Someone who I stayed
with heard on radio and told me, Dalby reached minus two and Oakey reached
minus five. I fell ill after the first time the temperature dropped quickly
because I wasn't prepared for it. I got the flu in Dalby, and made to
stay indoors all the time. I thought next morning it would get better, but
as I prepare for that night in bed, I could feel temperature dropping again
fast, I thought "Nah it would be 1 or 2." The next morning it
was bitterly cold so cold it bit me very badly, and that same lady said Dalby
got minus two that morning, anyway I saw some storm clouds coming from the
south that day. That night I again have to undergo a drop in temperature
but I thought the weather will get warmer next day. Alas! The same thing
happened again when the lady said Dalby was minus two, but the condition was
far worse. It started to rain when I was heading for Brisbane from Dalby
after a week's stay in Dalby, when I arrived at Oakey sleet started to fall,
and it was raining ice. It was actually a light brief snow storm at Oakey
and the temperature only reached 8 degree that afternoon. When the cloud
cleared, I arrived at Ipswich, and that night the temperature started to fall
quickly again and by next morning it was minus two at Ipswich.
I
was ill that time due to lack of preparedness to handle severe cold snaps. I
wasn't prepared because I thought nothing like that would happen in Queensland
but it did. I thought that only cold weather came from frost before a sunny
day. I was half right. Another factor in cold snaps is snow storms due to the
severity of the cold snap.
Despite
Queensland is the Sunshine state, where we usually get warmer winters than
southern states, but cold snaps like these are also a fact of life in
Queensland, so it's extremely wise to be prepared for it, no matter how odd or
expected they are, otherwise it will be extremely dangerous.
Also in the Northern Territory, where I currently live, I was holidaying in Alice Springs in June 2006, and it was the coldest holiday I had ever experienced. Throughout the holiday there were no nights which were more than 2 degrees in the morning, and the lowest temperature I have ever experienced to date was minus four at Alice Springs on the 13th of June 2006. That morning the taps couldn’t run because the water was too icy to flow and there was ice on cars everywhere. Yeah even in the warmest states of Queensland and the Northern Territory frosts can occur in certain places in winter.
Snow storm
My father, myself and my
grandma, as North Queenslanders were holidaying in Sydney when we attended the
2000 NRL Grand final on 27th August 2000 at Stadium Australia, three weeks
before the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games commenced.
We wanted to see our
relatives in Blacktown, so we flew to Sydney by plane, and we holidayed in
Sydney from 19th to 29th August for 10 days before flying back to
Townsville. We only stopped at Brisbane airport for a few minutes both
ways.
A few days before the 2000
NRL grand final, we set out from Blacktown, a city in the western suburbs of
Sydney to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains via Penrith by train, and we could see
storm and low clouds hovering over the mountains to the west. It started
to rain falling as sleet and light snow before we got to Katoomba. I
could see few white icy flakes falling from the sky to the ground on the train
both ways to and from Katoomba on the higher parts of the ranges.
It was a very cold, wet,
unsettled and cloudy day, and when we got to Katoomba, my hands were so numb I
had to buy some gloves, and we had to blow white air all day because it was so
cold. The sun did shine for a while, but the maximum air temperature was
8 degrees in the afternoon that day, the second time in my life when it failed
to reach 10 degrees in a day. We went to see the 3 sisters at Katoomba,
which is part of the Blue Mountains, and by the time we got there the sun
stopped shining after a short period of time, and a storm was brewing. I
was expecting to hear thunder and lightning, but it didn't happen that day much
to my relief as I hated thunder and lightning anyway. Instead we got a
surprise. It was raining ice, sleet and snow and we were standing
watching the 3 sisters in the middle of the snow.
It looked like a rain shower,
but it fell more heavier and thicker than rain, and it
hit me hard, especially as I haven't been outdoor in a snow storm before, and
it was very cold as well. The snow soon stopped falling, but as we went
to the railway station the sleet kept on falling which was lighter than
before. We walked on the street in the middle of Katoomba in the sleet as
well, and there was very little warmth to get comfortable in. Then when
we were in the railway station there was a heater in the room, it was so cold
the sliding door at the Katoomba railway station had to be shut and the snow
started falling again, and it fell heavier and heavier, and it looked white to
me.
It is a rare occasion that I
have to experience since I was born in the tropics, not only did I experience
the 1st snow fall for real, I got caught in the snow storm outdoors for real as
well at the same time.
See Photos of the snow storm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney in the Photo Gallery
Tropical
Cyclone Aivu
On Tuesday 4th April 1989, a
natural disaster struck the Burdekin District. A powerful category four tropical
cyclone with winds of 250 kms, and a central pressure of 935 hpa crossed the
coast near Ayr and caused a lot of damage costing millions of dollars to houses
and sugar cane farms.
Tropical Cyclone 'Aivu'
originated on the waters around Solomon Islands and made a straightforward
southwesterly track toward the Queensland Coast. As it approached the
coast, it intensified to a system that would be very powerful for a storm to
affect an area in Autumn.
When it was about to cross
the coast, Tropical Cyclone 'Aivu' had the strength of that of Tropical Cyclone
'Tracy' which struck Darwin on Christmas eve 1974, only that 'Aivu' moved more
straightforward, the reason there wasn't as much damage caused by 'Aivu' as was
caused in Darwin by 'Tracy'.
In the Height of the storm, I
stayed indoors in the middle of the house, as winds increased up to
mid-morning. By mid-morning after the winds were at it's
strongest, a strange thing happened. The winds dropped suddenly to a
point where there was barely any wind, and in that period of calm, I went
outdoors, and guess what? I was in the middle of the calm period called
an 'eye'. When I saw the eye of Cyclone 'Aivu' I could see some light
through the cloud from the sun, and around the eye, I could see the cloud
moving very fast, pushed by the winds that were around the eye.
As the eye passed, I was told
to move back indoors quickly, as the second lot of winds started to blow, and
at first the winds were as strong as the winds before the eye, before gradually
calming down. Fortunately there was little damage to our house despite a
cyclone passing with the strength of Cyclone 'Tracy', but iron roof sheets from
a nearby car garage blew in our lawn at the back. The winds were very
noisy, and I could hear the winds hitting and howling on the roof together with
rain pelting very heavily from the cyclone.
See Photos of Tropical Cyclone Aviu in the Photo Gallery
Tropical
Cyclone Rachel
I was going to Darwin from Alice
Springs in early 1997, and as I approached Darwin, the weather turned from
sunny, dry and hot to cloudy, humid and wet. As I neared Darwin the rain
fell heavier and the winds started to blow. Suddenly someone told me that
Darwin was on a cyclone alert. The next morning Cyclone 'Rachel' formed
near Darwin, and blew winds of 120 km / h and it was raining and windy for the
most of the day. The only damage left was trees fallen on the grounds,
branches of trees, and so on.
Tropical
Cyclone Ingrid
A very intense tropical
cyclone called Tropical Cyclone Ingrid played havoc with the weather in Darwin,
Northern Territory, where I now live. It originated on the waters off
North Queensland, intensified to a Cat 5 system off Cooktown, Queensland and went
across the cape as a weakened cyclone and then came across the gulf and the NT
northern coast and re-intensified in a Cat 5 storm. At the time of
writing it is believed to be going out to sea. Thanks god!
While it did not do any
damage in Darwin, it gave me the fright of my life. It brought back
memories of Tropical Cyclone Aviu which hit Ayr as a Cat 4 storm.
On the day on March 12 I was
with friends in the northern suburbs of Darwin near where I live where I
suddenly got caught in a very vicious electrical storm, and it was full of
cloud to ground lightning (very bright thick bolts of lightning) in the western
tail of Tropical Cyclone Ingrid and a lot of loud thunder, although the core of
the cyclone was about 450 kms east of Darwin, moving along the coast of the
Northern Territory.
The electrical storm
associated with the cyclone's western tail in Darwin's north brought back
memories of myself seeing cloud to ground lightning (a lot of it) in a
electrical storm near Bowen, Queensland, and it was the worst cloud to ground
lightning storm I have seen for nearly 30 years.
I found out it was a very
tense waiting game preparing for a Cat 5 storm and it was a very frightening
experience. I am used to preparing for Cat 1 to 4 storms but not Cat 5
storms, and Ingrid made history, it was the 1st Cat 5 storm I was threatened
with.
Thankfully Ingrid was not as
destructive as Aviu was, but if I was asked which was the most threatening
cyclone I have ever been associated with, Ingrid takes the prize.
Smaller
Tropical Cyclones
I have been through other cyclones albeit smaller ones, mostly in the Burdekin. One of them, Tropical Cyclone Ita was one of the most lightning active cyclones I have ever seen, when it was full of lightning and thunder. Justin and Charlie was more watery cyclones which brought flood rains to the Burdekin.
Facts on
Tropical Cyclones
Tropical cyclones
are not a nice experience, but that's something we have to accept while living
in the tropics. Cyclones usually originate and hit the coasts 25 to 30
degrees from the equator on both sides, and the waters must be around 26
degrees or more before a cyclone develops, and usually they develop between
December and March. Tropical Cyclone 'Aivu' which hit the Burdekin in
April was a rare event, so powerful for a system in Autumn
which made the event ever more rarer.
Cyclones vary in
structure, direction, strength and sizes, but they have something in
common. All originate from tropical waters each wet season, and while we
might not like them they are a part of the tropical climate. Cyclones are
different to southern east, south and west coast lows which affect the New
South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and south Western Australian
coasts, because they can move in any direction and hit at any time. Also
cyclones have a more circular cloud mass around the eye than the cloud mass and
structure of a southern east, south and west coast low. Sometimes a
tropical cyclone which originated from tropical waters, and which moves south
towards polar waters, eventually becomes a east coast,
or a west coast low if it is moving on the ocean toward the south.
William Walker