Stan Grant on his ABC “Matter of Fact” Wednesday night 28 Nov 2018 – slide forward to ~35mins. Thanks to Lance for this MP3 file only ~2MB – if anybody has “voice to text” software that could produce a “first edition transcript” – please post the text in comments and I can edit it to a full transcript. Help us show Stan how his show could have been improved.
Here is a ref to the THE INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL CONFERENCE IN PARIS September 1896 – attended by Clement Wragge “Chief Meteorologist” for the Colony of Queensland – This brief summary of the conference makes no mention of climate – it seems to have been about practical matters meteorological and geophysical observations – telegraphy and weather.
I have been reading up on our fascinating pioneer colonial era meteorologist Clement Wragge mentioned in “A Matter of Fact”. But I can not see anywhere that he was promoting anything remotely resembling “climate change” as we now know it. That goes for other colonial era meteorologists and weather observatory heads such as Fitzroy, Brisbane, Todd, Neumayer, Ellery, Russell. They were all about improving weather observations, better meteorological instruments and communications such as the telegraph. Wragge’s main contribution as I read it was his running the “weather bureau” in Queensland from 1887 when right up with modern trends he opened up hundreds of weather stations equipped with standard instruments and also sent standard instruments to sites on various Pacific islands.
Thanks Lance for the tape, I could not get the TV version.
Helpful hints for Stan:
1. Why not interview someone who has a different point of view – perhaps even your good self, Warwick?
2. If you want to know about the history of thinking about climate, you need to read up a bit more – a good start would be James Rodger Fleming, “Historical Perspectives on Climate Change”, Oxford, 1998.
3. Specifically on the history of the theory of carbon dioxide driving climate change, the interviewee is obviously not really up to speed. He refers to 1938 as the first time “data” were put together on this, which presumably refers to Guy Callendar’s work published that year, but he does not appear to know about the earlier work of Arhennius, or realise that both Callendar and Arhennius thought of man-made global warming as a good thing.
4. One perspective worth exploring is that most previous fears about dangerous atmospheric changes have proved unfounded – including the global cooling scare of the 1960s and 1970s, and worries such as that atomic bomb tests would disrupt the climate, that acid rain would destroy the forests, or that ozone depletion would cause mass cancers. Whether today’s global warming concerns are warranted or not, there is clearly a tendency in modern society to latch on to doomsday scenarios, especially concerning atmospheric changes.
This 32 page book by BoM Dir. W.J. Gibb 1975
sets out the contributions of various pioneers in Australian colonial era meteorology. The book is presented in html form at this University of Melbourne site – from begining to end. The word “climate” does not appear in the 32 pages of the Gibbs book.
So I think when Stan Grant says in his show Matter of Fact – “The question of climate change is certainly at the forefront of our minds right now and has been a crippling political issue to deal with. Right now it is tearing at the very fabric of politics around the world. But it has always been on our minds – scientists have been looking at the skies – have been wondering about the weather and wondering what it means for us for centuries.” Wondering about the weather for sure Stan but in Australia at least – not fixated about “climate change”.
Here is the sad story of how the mt kosciuszko observatory money ran out.
trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/104066418
Here we see how Wragge had figured out that the solar cycle influenced the weather to the point that he was confident to make predictions based upon that knowledge far into the future.
trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131363467
Here we get to see how his solar cycle based forecast of drought for year after that publication date was an amazing success that the BoM’s 1 month predictions cannot rival today.
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=percent&period=12month&area=nat&year=1915&month=11&day=30
Here we get to see how his 1916 to 1920 above average rainfall prediction also did amazingly well.
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=percent&year=1920&month=1&period=48month&area=nat
Here we get to see how the 1923 and 1924 under average solar cycle based prediction was spot on nine and ten years after being made.
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=percent&year=1924&month=1&period=24month&area=nat
His predictions for 1925 to 1930 did not do as well with those years being a mix of good and bad. This is no doubt because he ignored the 4 *19 year cycle used by his fellow government astronomer from N.S.W. Russell and he also ignored the cycle favored by his apprentice Inigo Jones, the Bruckner cycle.
The “Papers Past” site in NZ (equivalent of Trove) has many press articles quoting Clement Wragge who lived at Birkenhead in Auckland for ~ 12 years before he died in Dec 1922.
In the NZ Herald May 1912 Mr Wragge predicts the NSW drought to continue. Happily for NSW farmers here is how their winter panned out. Predicting weather is a tough game.
It is a pity that the telegram from some journalist abbreviating Wragge, to N.Z. was sent in the days when you paid for every word etc.
Otherwise some more of the precious detail in the prediction may have been noted. Also that the general drought prediction was eight years old.
“Get up a dam. Dam with all your might and main”
“For the drought, if you like that word, is actually here,…”
“yet a reversal of the great etheric engine, temporary though it will be, will come later, and the promised intervening rains will freshen the land like water to cool a burning tongue. Well, store that water, every precious drop, You will need it all before the year has ended.”
trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/228853126
So what happened after the very correct prediction of some rain in the short term future? Well you don’t tell people to build dams if it is not going to rain then be dry, so we already know he got that first part correct.
Here is how the following 3 months went.
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=percent&year=1912&month=12&period=3month&area=nat
This all formed part of a far longer and far more severe drought he had predicted that continued for more than another three years. As seen here. Those who had built dams may have stood a chance.
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=percent&year=1915&month=12&period=48month&area=nat
Here two days before that telegram is where he is quoted as predicting the drought to go on to 1915 but he also hints that 1915 will not be as good a season as 1916.
trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/195656197
Meanwhile back in May 1912 other forecasters were using the sun to predict the rain that did come during June, July and August 1912.
“There are indications of the approach of a period of intense solar activity, which should result, in a greatly increased rainfall in Australia generally during the winter months. Severe gales, with heavy coastal rains, are anticipated, and serious floods are likely in the Hunter and Hawkesbury and other rivers in June, July and August.”
trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/121494614
David Brewer
“Thanks Lance for the tape, I could not get the TV version.”
No worries. I managed to record some of it off ABC24 but noticed it was on after it started so don’t have it all.