I met Bob Carter after one of my fossil-collecting mates, Duncan McLeod, came across some shell fossils in a ‘marl pit’ on his parents farm property near Winton, southern New Zealand. This was about 1974-1975 when I was at primary school. I traveled from my… Read more
All posts tagged “climate”
Limestones, Climate Change and Scepticism
What happens when a seal swallows a lump of limestone? *** The broad theme of my back-packing trip last year was to move around the northern rim of the Mediterranean (and visit a few of its islands along the way). During much of that trip,… Read more
Sudden Stratospheric Warming Closed my Cafe
The weather around Wanaka, and the broader Otago Lakes area of New Zealand has gone slightly biblical. New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) (tweeted on December 4th “It’s only the 4th, but about a month’s worth of rain has already fallen… Read more
Australia – both Greening and Burning?
Once again, the south east of Australia has had huge fires. But how can this be? Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising, carbon dioxide is ‘plant food’ and apparently the result is ‘global greening’. The greening phenomenon is actually real. Studies have shown that world… Read more
How You Can Predict Bushfires in Australia – Four Days Out
Tomorrow, Tuesday Nov 12, 2019 is looking very bad for south-east Australia (especially New South Wales, but also parts of Queensland, Victoria and South Australia), and this was clear at least four days ago. The reason for this is the ‘synoptic’ pattern of atmospheric circulation… Read more
What’s Happening to New Zealand’s Haast Pass?
It was next morning that I heard the bridge had washed away. I had hammered over it during the night – back in the 90s – a time when you could do a tad over the speed limit on country roads, with reasonable confidence nobody… Read more
How Much Carbon Dioxide was in the Atmosphere of New Zealand’s Jurassic Curio Bay Fossil Forest?
How do you figure out how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere millions of years ago? In the Jurassic, the fossil forest at Curio Bay in New Zealand was probably growing in higher latitudes than any forest in the Southern Hemisphere today. The reasons… Read more
When Frequent-Flying Becomes Insane-Flying
I loved my Singapore Airlines ‘Elite Gold’ card. Suddenly, International airports transitioned from being places where food and drink were wildly overpriced, to …. free. When I stuffed-up and missed flights, or political rules changed and I couldn’t board an aircraft – instead of costing… Read more
Miocene Rain and Fire Forests of Bannockburn
Canungra is the perfect place to stop for a snack on the drive up to O’Reilly’s/Lamington National Park in southeastern Queensland. On a weekend you can grab a latte and pie and sit outside a cafe, watching the biker crowd doing pretty much the same… Read more
Miocene Nothofagus in New Zealand’s Manuherikia Group
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Nothofagus leaf fossils in New Zealand is – not finding them. Nothofagus is another name for the southern beech trees that form forests in New Zealand, as well as Australia, Patagonia, New Caledonia and New Guinea. As a group, the beeches are… Read more