Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky, When, sick at heart, around us, We see the cattle die, But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless again, The drumming of an army, The steady soaking rain. Excerpt from the poem My Country written by Dorothy Mackellar in 1904 when only 19 years old.

Elizabeth St Melbourne 1972

Extreme weather events like heat waves, floods and record cold, according to archived newspaper items, are occurring as regularly today as what they were in the late nineteenth century. The problem for governments supporting climate change or global warming is the lack of any reliable data available in this period with most of the annual temperatures, particularly those in the 80’s and 90’s, may well have been published after an agreement between major agencies.

Echuca Flood 1870

NASA, British Meteorology Office and CRU East Anglia were the first to publish global average surface temperatures in 1988. All three had posted the average world temperature for the period 1950-1980 at 59 degrees F (15 degrees C) almost 0.50 C more than the 2021 global temperature of 58.53 F (14.74 C). This is at odds with archived data which show cooler temperatures during that period. You would expect that NASA would be the most accurate of all given its more sophisticated measuring instruments such as their earlier use of Satellites.

Hansen: The Man Who Knew Too Much?

Dr. Hansen of NASA, pictured left being arrested by police when leading a rally against inaction on climate change. NASA, who recorded temperatures from readings at monitoring stations around the world, had previously reported that four of the hottest years on record occurred in the 1980’s. Compared with a 30–year base period from 1950 to 1980, when the global temperature averaged 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature was one-third of a degree higher last year. In the entire century before 1880, global temperature had risen by half a degree, rising in the late 1800’s and early 20th century, then roughly stabilizing for unknown reasons for several decades in the middle of the century. In the first five months of this year, the temperature averaged about four-tenths of a degree above the base period, Dr. Hansen reported today. ”The first five months of 1988 are so warm that we conclude that 1988 will be the warmest year on record unless there is a remarkable, cooling in the remainder of the year,” he told the Senate. June 24^{th 1988 NYT}

The British readings showed that the average global temperature in 1988 was 0.612 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average for the period 1950 through 1979, which is a base for comparing global temperatures. The average worldwide temperature for that 30-year period is roughly 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the British researchers said. The 1988 average temperature was 0.018 degrees higher than the average for 1987, the previous high year. Feb 4^th 1989 NYT

UPI ARCHIVES

JAN. 9, 1991

Earth’s average surface temperature was higher in 1990 than…

ROB STEIN UPI Science Editor WASHINGTON — Earth’s average surface temperature was higher in 1990 than any other year on record, possibly a sign of dreaded global warming, scientists reported Wednesday. An analysis of data collected at 2,000 meterological stations around the globe found 1990 was warmest year in records dating back to 1880 — with temperatures averaging 59.8 degrees Fahrenheit. That represents a half-degree rise in average global temperature from 1989 and an increase of 0.8 degrees over the average from 1951 to 1980, said James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. The warmest previous year on record was 1988 — when temperatures averaged 59.6 degrees, he said. warming, especially because it was projected by the same models that have predicted such warming. ‘It’s kind of interesting that these models, which are criticized as being unable to do meaningful calculations, seem to be pretty much on the mark,’ he said.

US Vice President Gore 1998

UPI  Record warm intensified in early 1998 WASHINGTON, June 8, June 08, 1998 — After the past several years of record warm temperatures worldwide, the first several months of 1998 brought some of the warmest U.S. temperatures ever on record, the federal government announced. The data was collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and announced by Vice President Al Gore, who said some of this year’s warming could be attributed to the cyclical El Nino patterns. But, Gore said, the overall trend found by NOAA ‘is a reminder once again that global warming is real, and that unless we act, we can expect more extreme weather in the years ahead.’ He cited such events as record levels of precipitation, record deaths from tornadoes, damage to coral reefs from the Florida Keys to Australia, and wildfires in Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico. Gore announced the NOAA findings as a means of increasing pressure on Congress to approve President Clinton’s budget request for $6.3 billion over five years for tax and research incentives to promote more energy- efficient products and technologies. Gore insisted U.S. industry had the expertise and ability to make affordable changes to combat global warming, saying, ‘We can do that. We know how to do that.’ Worldwide average temperatures in the 1980s and the 1990s have been the highest on record, and the Earth’s average surface temperature last year of some 62 degrees Fahrenheit represented the highest level ever recorded. Federal researchers said new temperaturerecords were set in five states in the first five months of 1998, with the average global surface temperature running 1.76 degrees above the average of 61.7 degrees for the benchmark period 1961-1990.