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Aussie Data Centres Brace For Dust Storm Barrage
An anonymous reader writes "Data centers and telcos in the Australian cities of Sydney and Brisbane have shut off external ventilation systems, restricted loading dock access and attended false alarms after a major dust storm choked the cities today. The storm is said to be the worst of its type ever recorded in Australia. Macquarie Telecom disengaged automatic deployment of fire-prevention gas from the fire alarm to prevent gas being released on a false alarm. Other major data center operators reported clogged air filters and heat exchangers and said they would be performing cleaning and maintenance operations this week."
It's our turn with the dust up here in North Queensland. Mind you, it is not nearly as bad, merely masking out the mountains. Should get a spectacular sunset this afternoon.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
This was posted on one of the Aussie mailing lists I'm a member of, absolutely sureal. Wish I could have seen it, bit of a drive from the West coast and I believe they were grounding planes at one point.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Before and after. more. I was up before dawn.. I first thought it was just fog
Link to Brisbane pics
You never catch me alive
A) it is not the worst on record at all, it is the worst in 20 years. There have been significantly worse dust storms in Australia over the past 200 years. B) it is was NOT a high energy climatic phenomena, it is was the results of strong (but not excessive) winds over central Australia picking up the red dust, the prevailing winds happened to coincide nicely with this REGULAR outback phenomena to blow the cloud over major cities. This has about as much to do with global warming as a penguin farting in antarctica.
There are some great pictures floating around, but this video shows what it looks like to come on the wall of dust...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you know this is coming, get extra air filters, use the absolute kind (like 3M Filtrete), and be prepared to change them frequently. With absolute filters, the filters will gradually stop letting air through as they clog, so you must inspect them regularly or have clogged-filter sensors. The usual fibreglas filters don't even try to stop 100% of the particles above the filter's size limit, but they tend to still pass air even when clogged, so neglecting them doesn't stop airflow.
And use duct tape to fix any leaks around the filters.
Now that the US has been operating in the sandbox for years now, keeping gear going during sandstorms is well understood.
Adelaide is semi arid. Always has, always will. Build desal and be done with it. (coming from someone who grew up in Adelaide for 26 years, then got the hell out before Adelaideism nearly robbed me of my ambition)
Yes but nobody in Sydney cares what happens in Melbourne any way. In fact, nobody cares what happens in Melbourne, save for the odd union dispute.
Don't wish too hard, lest your wish be granted.
I'm old enough to have clear memories of Melbourne's '83 dust storm, and the "rain" that came with it. It's one thing when the skies turn red, but when it rains as well, that's something else altogether. If you thought the images of Sydney yesterday were somewhat apocalyptic, imagine red mud falling from the sky. That's right folks - it was like it was raining blood! Seriously weird.
So that would roughly line up with the 1937-1947 drought, when the following happened:
I don't know about you, but that's not something I'd like to experience with the current population of Australia. If there's some part of cutting CO2 output that would help avoid such a situation, I'll gladly sign up for it.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
"Climate change is a farce."
No, farcical is believing an obvious lie such as the claim that an active super volcano is melting either or both poles.
Also you haven't defined "worst dustorm"? - I would assume TFA is measuring the duststorm by the area it covered. In which case this one would be the "worst" of the two since it streached from South Australia to Queensland where as the 1984 one (that I experienced as it rolled over Bairnsdale) only covered Victoria and parts of NSW / S.Australia, at a rough guess that's about 1/4 of the area.
"It's the first year of el nino, the ground is going to be dry"
El Nino has not kicked in yet and it is NOT forecast to do so this year, this dust has accumulated under El Nina conditions. When ENSO does in fact flip to El Nino conditions the ground is going to get even dryer than it already is.
Did you (while reading up on non-existant volcanos), fail to notice that the majority of Aussies are living with strict water rationing laws? Are you unaware that practically all the state capitals in the country are frantically pouring billion$ into building some of the largest desal plants on the planet? Have you not noticed that most aussie grain harvests over the last 10yrs have seen a 50-60% drop in size when compared to pre 1990 averages? Is there not a giant scar on the Victorian bush from what was an upnprecedented firestorm (I say this having wittnessed first hand all three major fires in living memeory, 2009, 1984 & 1968(?) ). Are the hydro plants in Tassie not silent due to lack of water in their recently completed dams? Is Melbourne currently not at it's lowest winter water reserves on record?
Please also explain to us (without invoking invisable volcanos) why an entire forrest of 600yo river red gums has not survived this particular drought, when according to you conditions have been much worse at various times in the last century or so.
Like some of the other replies, I really have no explaination for why people post bullshit like the steaming pile in your post, is it attempted gallows humor? Are you paid?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
70 years ago the Rabbit plague was in full swing (until the Myxoma Virus was introduced in 1950's). Rabbits combined with overgrazing it amplified El Ninyos drying effect on Australia (Learning from history: land and pasture degradation episodes in Australiaâ(TM)s rangelands).
Today due to climate changes effects on the ocean currents, El Ninyo could quite possibly become permanent rather than a periodic event - which if happens, will freeze eastern Australia in a permanent drought conditions (and South America in permanent flooding conditions). A bit of drought in half of Australia and a few major floods in South America would be the very least of the worlds worries though... climate change screwing up the ocean current system is implicated in the Anoxic event which eventually led to the death of 90% of life on earth
>Climate change is a farce. im a sydneysider, this is the worst duststorm we've had in 70 years
No worries mate, the planet will be just fine. Nothing we can do to the planet short of complete nuclear Armageddon that Mother earth can't recover from in a few million years. Its not the planet we have to worry about... its our survival on it as a destructive, greedy, self serving species - and that's just a random sampling of our "elected" leaders
I won't comment on "Spain, Greece, and other places", but much of California IS a desert, and always has been.
LA, San Diego, most of southern California can exist as they do because humans diverted virtually the entire Colorado river and the entire snowmelt in the southern Rockies to making it the environment you consider "normal".
Fact is, the real California climate is semi-arid at best until you get up toward the Bay area.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"