Bob Carter, one of Australia's own climate science deniers, has written a letter to The Australian (h/t MB). Extract follows:
Heading for ice age
...we have a report by Sue Neales that the size of our grain harvest remains in doubt following severe frosts in southern NSW killing large areas of early wheat crops and also damaging wheat and canola crops in South Australia and Victoria (“Trifecta of calamities to deplete. crop harvest”, 12/9)See below for more on the frost damage.
Is it unreasonable to be surprised that none of your writers, much less the government, has noticed that leading solar astrophysicists, such as Habibullo Abdussamatov from Pulkovo Observatory in St Petersburg, have for years been commenting on the declining activity of the sun?Not true. In May last year Graham Lloyd wrote about the ice age comether, Habibullo Abdussamatov, with derision from anyone who read it. Graham Readfearn tells all.
These scientists are projecting a significant cooling over the next three decades, and perhaps even the occurrence of another little ice age.Bob only mentions one "solar astrophysicist". Who are the others? Where are they hiding? Why can't Bob name any? Maybe because reputable solar researchers know that a dip in solar activity won't herald an ice age, little or big.
Obsessed as they are with a gentle global warming trend that stopped late last century, should the expected solar cooling eventuate, policy makers will rue the day they failed to heed the advice of independent scientists on climate change issues.
Bob Carter, Townsville, Qld
Habibullo Abdussamatov is a government scientist who heads up a space research division in Russia. It seems he favours lesser scientific "journals". Bob Carter used to be a researcher at a university, paid by government funding. He's paid a stipend by the Heartland Institute and is affiliated with a number of climate science denying groups. He's not an independent scientist.
Neither of them are climate scientists.
Both of them are "ice age comethers".
Both of them are in a tiny minority of scientists who deny climate science and not on any scientific grounds. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists know that humans are causing global warming. Whose advice should policy makers take?
Frost damage to winter crops in part because of the mild winter!
This is from an article by Lisa Castleman, Riverina Local Land Services (NSW Government)
...The occurrence of ‘Stem Frost’ in cereal crops such as wheat, barley, oats and triticale or pulse crops such as lupins, field peas and faba beans is rare but not impossible. Stem Frost can occur when a severe frost (less than -2°C) occurs shortly after a rainfall event and water has settled inside the boot only to be frozen by the frost which then damages the sensitive stem tissue in close proximity....
...Frosts in winter are not unusual but an early sowing window this season and milder temperatures through winter has meant that many crops have developed quickly, making them more vulnerable to severe frost events. “Advanced crops with a run of severe frosts coinciding immediately after rainfall events is a combination that we rarely experience” said Ms Castleman who is based in Wagga Wagga.
So the reason the winter frosts wrought such devastation is because the milder temperatures in winter (consistent with global warming, you'll note) meant that the crops were more developed when the frosts hit. The rain made the damage worse.
Bob Carter is not only not a climate scientist, he's not an agricultural scientist either.
