You’ve seen CSI-New York and CSI-Miami where science solves the deepest mystries in a half-hour TV episode.

How about CSI-RO?

You’ve seen CSI-New York and CSI-Miami where science solves the deepest mystries in a half-hour TV episode.

How about CSI-RO?

Yes, I did mean ‘a sow’s ear out of a silk purse’. It seems to me there is an attempt by the spin merchants to re-cast a naturally complex climate for e.g. SE Australia (i.e. a ‘silk purse’), into something simplistically subject to ‘bad anthopogenically driven climate change trend’ (i.e. a ‘sows ear’).

Sorry if I was being too drily ‘witty’ eh? (;-)

It intrigues me that the January 2007 Timbal and Murphy study report:

http://www.mdbc.gov.au/subs/seaci/docs/reports/M111_TR07.pdf

clearly identifies that there is no effect of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) or Tasman Sea SSTs (i.e. the parameters likely to be most affected by AGW) on the critical autumn Tmax, Tmin, Rainfall and Rainfall Residuals. This shows just how meaningless and scattergun was Luke’s post above.

Furthermore, the study shows that the regions where there has been significant autumn drying are the North West Cloud Band (i.e. southern South Australia and Western Victoria) and the remainder of Victoria AND that this is simply due to natural El Nino and Mean Sea Level Effects.

The implication for good agricultural resource management planning is simply that supplementary delivery of autumn irrigation water supplies to those areas should be accorded infrastructural priority.

Indeed, as Luke says – essentially nothing to do with AGW! So why bother rattling on with jargon about SAM, Tasman Sea, Walker circulation etc?

In this spin-laden era, I say let’s drop the spin, (including the acronym-dropping), guaranteed to turn the good men on the land right off anyway. The events of the weekend just past provided an excellent comment on what Australians are beginning to think of all these ‘Sultans of Spin’.

Yes, I did mean ‘a sow’s ear out of a silk purse’. It seems to me there is an attempt by the spin merchants to re-cast a naturally complex climate for e.g. SE Australia (i.e. a ‘silk purse’), into something simplistically subject to ‘bad anthopogenically driven climate change trend’ (i.e. a ‘sows ear’).

Sorry if I was being too drily ‘witty’ eh? (;-)

It intrigues me that the January 2007 Timbal and Murphy study report:

http://www.mdbc.gov.au/subs/seaci/docs/reports/M111_TR07.pdf

clearly identifies that there is no effect of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) or Tasman Sea SSTs (i.e. the parameters likely to be most affected by AGW) on the critical autumn Tmax, Tmin, Rainfall and Rainfall Residuals. This shows just how meaningless and scattergun was Luke’s post above.

Furthermore, the study shows that the regions where there has been significant autumn drying are the North West Cloud Band (i.e. southern South Australia and Western Victoria) and the remainder of Victoria AND that this is simply due to natural El Nino and Mean Sea Level Effects.

The implication for good agricultural resource management planning is simply that supplementary delivery of autumn irrigation water supplies to those areas should be accorded infrastructural priority.

Indeed, as Luke says – essentially nothing to do with AGW! So why bother rattling on with jargon about SAM, Tasman Sea, Walker circulation etc?

In this spin-laden era, I say let’s drop the spin, (including the acronym-dropping), guaranteed to turn the good men on the land right off anyway. The events of the weekend just past provided an excellent comment on what Australians are beginning to think of all these ‘Sultans of Spin’.

“How, at this critical time to our own collective self interests, can we make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse?”

To me the PhD degree is awarded to people who demonstrate they understand that science is not about promoting the latest fad or fancy, but 90% hard-nosed validation. I know there are plenty of these people about.

“How, at this critical time to our own collective self interests, can we make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse?”

To me the PhD degree is awarded to people who demonstrate they understand that science is not about promoting the latest fad or fancy, but 90% hard-nosed validation. I know there are plenty of these people about.