Russ Steele
In September 2003, Ellen and I visited Australia and one of the more memorable areas we visited was Alice Springs. We arrived by air the day after a rain storm, the first one in 14 years according the driver that drove us from the Airport. As we walked about the town in the heat, you could almost see the evaporation taking place as the huge puddles vanished into the clear sky.
When ever we read stories about Alice Springs we recall our visit to the transportation museum, the historic telegraph station, the spring that is not really a spring but a rocky ledge in an under ground river, the flying doctors and the school of the air, to name a few. Life is hard in Alice Springs and a recent extended cold spell is not improve things.
Ice Age Now has some details:
“Burst water pipes all over town are keeping local plumbers busy as a new cold weather record is set in Alice Springs (Australia),” says this article by Emma Sleath.
By Saturday (when we hit a chilly -5.2 degrees), Alice Springs had endured five nights in a row of minimum temperatures below -4, a new record in the region.
Warren Thompson, who owns a plumbing company in town, says he’s been run off his feet.
“I was getting calls from about 8am [on Saturday morning] with people ringing up saying that they had no water coming out of their taps…then by about 9.30am everything started to thaw out and then all of the burst pipes appeared,” says Warren. “We just weren’t able to cope with the amount of calls that I was getting.”
More on the event from Ice Age Now HERE. Thanks to Ray Baney who writes from Australia:
“I’ve been living here off and on since 1978, and we appear to be going full circle back to the colder times of the 1970’s.”
“Overnight temps have been dipping below freezing almost every night for weeks …. We haven’t done that in many years.”
The Southern Hemisphere is having a rough winter. It is weather now, but if the trend keeps up, it could be come climate change.
The Next Grand Minimum 
Russ, The whole world is on that cusp!!!! I relooked over your research again. This time around it’s making more sense to me. Because there is theory that cloud cover holds the heat on the ground,not alowing for radiational cooling. White clouds do reflect sunlight. However, there is some heat that cannot escape into space because of that cloud cover. I think that could a double edge sword. Now, that could be one of the factor’s involved in cooling. Now, let me show you another cooling sorce that is,fog. FOG is the most cooling sorce know to man on this planet!!!! It does reflect sunlight,and at the same time, does not trap the heat, because it goes all the way to down ground level!!! I remember, the 1970’s there was alot of fog and haze at that time durring that decade. But they could not figure out why we were cooling. The environmentalist’s blamed the fog and the haze on pollution and carbon emissions.Well, we know different,now,because of Charles Peirce recording the wheather in philadelphia,durring the dalton minimum. I was surpised by all year’s they had fog and haze. And realized the connection. Because, this had already happened in the past, way before the industrial revolution in the 1900’s!!!!!!! I was shocked by all the ship’s that were lost in this point in time. Due to heavy dense fog!!! The sun burn’s the fog off durring the day,but due to a low cycle the sun’s energy burn’s it off at a much slower pace. Result ;: The more fog and haze present the more cooling!!!!! Anthony
Interesting thought. It is the low clouds the reflect the most energy and high clouds that capture the warming. Fog is the lowest of all clouds. I will do some more investigation. Thanks for picking my interest.