From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@me.com>

Date: October 29, 2009 2:05:09 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: IR/UV-Cut filters....


Hi Milton, 

My father is very suspisious of all this paranoia about GW. He feels he`s lived long enough (80 years next year) to put it all down to the natural return of cycles! We did get that drenching in late May but flooding returns to the Clarence River here every so many years anyway. Before I was into telescopes in the early years of the new century we had both floods here & serious drought conditions. We have some small dams on the property & were taking the tractor & water tank down to these to fill up & just to keep parts of the garden alive for quite some time. We have a big water tank for the house (no town water) & still have to buy water every now & again. It`s rainy here again at present though! The latest thing making news on the telly here is the rise of sea levels though. Up at Byron Bay (a couple of hours drive from us) they reckon many peoples beach houses will eventually be reclaimed by the ocean! They`ve been dumping more sand & also rock fill there.


Mark.

On 30/10/2009, at 5:50 AM, milton_aupperle wrote:

Hi Mark;

In our case it isn't "Global Warming". It's returning to more normal historical conditions. Drought conditions lasting in excess of 50+ year cycles have been the norm in western Canada Prairies for the past 1,000+ years (based historical climatology - not fear mongering and computer models). When immigrant farmers settled the area in the late 1880's, they lucked out as the western Canadian prairies were going through a wet period (relatively speaking "wet"). This lasted for about 110 years but appears to be coming to an end and we are entering another cycle of dry weather. Note that I did not say "hot dry", I said dry and that's what climatologist indicate is more normal. Bad time to be a farmer here though for the long haul, unless your near a major river system.

Also it's been well below normals (2 weeks ago we set new record low temperatures, -25°C below normal temperatures) for the past 4 weeks and this year may be one of the coolest in western Canada the past few decades.

TTYL..

Milton Aupperle

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Milton, Same here, attached is a picture of the Sun taken through
> the second of these storms which wasn`t as red in colour as the
> first....all due to global warming I guess?!
>
> Mark.
>
>
> On 29/10/2009, at 10:52 AM, Milton Aupperle wrote:
>
> > Hi Mark;
> >
> >
> > On 28-Oct-09, at 5:37 PM, Mark Gaffney wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks Milton, I didn't realise you'd already removed yours! Does
> >> removing this plate on the Flea 2 also void the warranty?
> >
> > I don't think so. I think they have a guide about removing filters
> > on the PGR web site. Ask their tech support if your not sure about
> > warranty issues.
> >
> >> You've got me thinking as we had about 4 enormous dust storms last
> >> month-picked up by cold fronts in the central deserts. It may have
> >> been a freak of the season, though...?!
> >
> > The area west of me is being developed, so they have stripped off
> > the prairie grass and exposed bare dirt for a housing development.
> > When the winds here gust up to 90 kmph the sky turned brown and
> > visibility dropped to about 100 meters due to dust, especially since
> > we had no rain at all for 6 weeks this summer.
> >
> > TTYL..
> >
> > Milton J. Aupperle
> >
> >
> >
> >
>