Comments on: Long hot summer

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:16:45 +0000

I couldn’t believe that post: he’s not just jumped any old shark, he’s gone for a big fat whale shark… Contrast P’s diatribe with the first comment on my Fires post. The similarities are too obvious.

By: Andrew W

Andrew W — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:36:44 +0000

I see in his latest rant Poneke casts all us Religious Warmists into Hell.

http://poneke.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/fire-3/#comments

By: Gareth

Gareth — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:10:53 +0000

As it happens, I think Barry’s revised his calculation in the comments to his post — to 1 in 150,000, if I recall correctly. Still a very long way out into the “tail” of the distribution…

I’m not sure about this Hadfield bloke: his server’s called “squid”. Mind you, that’s preferable (with sweet chilli sauce) to the readers who arrive from Landcare research, where some disgruntled IT bloke has dropped an “r”: poxy.landcare.cri.nz.

By: Mark H

Mark H — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:52:24 +0000

Just a quibble with Barry Brooks’s calculation:

So, in Adelaide we have two freakishly rare extreme events happening with a 10 month period. How likely is that? Well, if the events are totally independent, weâ€™d expect the joint likelihood of two such heatwaves (of 0.25% probability per year [the 2009 event] and 0.033% per year [2008 event], respectively), occurring within the same 12 month period, to happen about once every 1,200,000 years.

Given the tendency for persistence in the climate system, one would not necessarily expect the events to be totally independent, so the estimated joint likelihood is too low.

PS: I agree with everything m.hadfield said. He’s a sterling fellow!

By: Gareth

Gareth — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:22:01 +0000

Yes, that was a remarkable revelation -- there was me thinking 2008 was the ninth warmest in the record. It's obviously amazing what you can learn by watching the buses go by...

By: m.hadfield

m.hadfield — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:21:40 +0000

I notice that amongst the tags at the bottom you have included the tag “cranks”. You might say that but I couldn’t possibly comment.

So it’s been a hugely cold year worldwide? I didn’t know that!