Top all-time · #3920
Joanne Nova
Personal blog · joannenova.com.ausciencepolitics
Joanne Nova writes JoNova, a personal blog at joannenova.com.au about science and politics. Since 2009, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 22 times, most often “The big picture: 65M years of temperature swings (2010)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (16) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite Joanne Nova's blog as a source on climate topics, including Antarctic ice, Australian bushfires, CO2 levels and IPCC predictions. Its Skeptics Handbook is also linked as a reference.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 16 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The big picture: 65M years of temperature swings (2010)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-11-16
- California: Maybe prescribed burns once every 500 years are not enough?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-10-31
What Hacker News says?
Here's one from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of... More detailed discussion on Antarctic here: http://joannenova.com.au/2016/07/backflip-antarctic-peninsul... Nature study finding Antarctic has cooled is in the "References" section of that second link.
Comment linking /2016/07/backflip-antarctic-peninsula-posterchild-of-polar-disaster-has-been-cooling-not-warming/
on “Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016”Submitted Wiley shuts down 19 science journals and retracts 11,000 gobbledygook papers as a story · 99 points
HN discussionMaybe prescribed burns once every 500 years isn't enough http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed... There is a big difference between 'burning off' a couple of hundred acres and 'landscape scale fuel reduction', many reports conflate the two. Burning off 800 acres makes no difference when the surrounding 100,000 acres has high unmanaged forest fuel loads.
Comment linking /2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed-burns-once-every-500-years-are-not-enough/
on “Wildfires in Big Basin Redwoods State Park”Submitted The big picture: 65M years of temperature swings (2010) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI was told that, but I can't find a link for that specific claim. However, I can find a link to some old research that shows CO2 falling during the day in low wind: https://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-o...
Comment linking /2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-out-of-the-air-around-them-before-lunchtime-each-day/
on “Analyzing Carbon Dioxide levels while attending IETF-115 in London, UK”Submitted After a trillion tons of CO2, the Great Barrier Reef hits record coral cover as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIn summary, you are saying that controlled burns were reduced and they would have helped, it's just that the protests against them weren't significant? Also seems like the Australian media supported the protestors: http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/abc-deleting-facebook-posts...
Comment linking /2020/01/abc-deleting-facebook-posts-on-how-protesters-stop-prescribed-burns-more-worried-about-climate-change-than-wildfires/
on “Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia”Submitted California: Maybe prescribed burns once every 500 years are not enough? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWe are contributing to the climate change not necessarily causing it. The climate has changed significantly several times without humans in the past. http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-... http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/65_Myr_Climate_C...
Comment linking /2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/
on “Bernie Sanders unveils $16T 'Green new deal' plan”Not doing this might make a contribution. http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/in-australia-if-you-try-to-... "His crime. Pushing over 46 hectares of scrub on his own property to make a twenty meter wide firebreak in a bush fire prone area between DEC controlled scrub."
Comment linking /2013/01/in-australia-if-you-try-to-clear-a-firebreak-on-your-land-you-could-go-to-gaol/
on “Nearly 500M animals killed in Australian bushfires”I had a look at his. The problem with this (and similar seen) is they pick very specific things, and attempt to make this as an argument against the whole. In this video for example, they mention a few times the 'missing satellite data' conspiracy from the 70's. You know we only put a man on the moon in '69 right? And they were using slider rulers still then. While I acknowledge this be wrong it seems entirely reali…
Comment linking /2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/
on “Bering Sea loses half its sea ice over two weeks”Speaking of skepticism... Skeptics Handbook http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming Skeptics Handbook II http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global... It's always been about the science.
Comment linking /2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global-bullies-want-your-money/
on “Climate science document hacked”> we don't have that information and probably never will http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-...
Comment linking /2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/
on “If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month”What the critics are saying: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/20/josh-takes-on-xkcds-c... http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/how-to-make-climate-graphs-... From what I gather, there's a lot of skepticism over the Marcott 2013 study that Randall used. I don't know enough about the subject to comment on that further, but the critiques are as much food for thought as the comic itself.
Comment linking /2016/09/how-to-make-climate-graphs-look-scary-a-reply-to-xkcd/
on “We do not have 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change”Agreed, but I have to challenge your use of the term "scienctific consensus", science needs no consensus. http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/the-consensus-is-fake/
Comment linking /2009/11/the-consensus-is-fake/
on “Central England temperature dataset: 0.26°C increase per century since 1659 ”The IPCC, being a UN body of government appointed scientists, economists etc, consistently take an overly conservative view No, IPCC predictions have been wrong/over-aggressive in the past. Their 1990 long range predictions can be compared against the present now and are 40% out: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/the-ipcc-1990-far-predictio... People have a tendency to cherry pick predictions that worked out or which…
Comment linking /2012/05/the-ipcc-1990-far-predictions-were-wrong/
on “How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong”Well, the debate is very shrill, so it's probably hard to find someone who's not invested in some sort in one side. But "The Skeptics Handbook" is very sober and seems separated from the author: http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
Comment linking /global-warming/
on “Wikipedia’s climate doctor”That's a good achievement but energy grids have varying degrees of robustness. So a number of days later the grid went down, Spain and Portugal blackouts were making global headlines. The cause - TLRD version it seems like a cascade shut down all the interconnected power networks. From [1] The Guardian The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rar…
Comment linking /2025/04/days-after-spain-reaches-100-renewable-mass-blackouts-hit-due-to-mysterious-rare-atmospheric-phenomenon/
on “Spain hits first weekday of 100% renewable power on national grid”This is the study from Mexico (n=156,468) showing ~66% reduction in hospitalisations. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/r93g4/ Mexico has low vaccination rates, didn't lock down, didn't close the borders, and their hospitals are almost empty. https://joannenova.com.au/wp-content/mexico-2021.png https://joannenova.com.au/2021/07/mexico-uses-ivermectin/
Comment linking /2021/07/mexico-uses-ivermectin/
on “'Ivermectin not a viable option to treat Covid-19 cases, new study finds'”Utter rubbish. It was a bloody cyclone. At least in NZ and Australia there's little evidence that CO2 is driving an increase in storm activity. http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/storm-trends-in-australia-a...
Comment linking /2012/07/storm-trends-in-australia-and-new-zealand-no-evidence-that-co2-increases-extreme-weather/
on “How Climate Change Looks to a Vulnerable Nation: “The Future Has Been Shattered””
