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."

Might I recommend

[Anonymous Coward]

Kudzu? Hey, it worked eighty years ago. You've got at least fifty years before you have to worry about it choking out your native wildlife!

In Brisbane

[PigIronBob]

You could taste it by about 11am (still can). Water restrictions will be lifted for a few days to allow people to hose things down. Latest reports suggest there is a lesser dust storm due here by Saturday. Damn Kiwis are stealing our country by stealth!

Re:c-c-c-c

[hydrolyzer]

Climate change is a farce. im a sydneysider, this is the worst duststorm we've had in 70 years, IE: 70 years ago, it was this bad. It's the first year of el nino, the ground is going to be dry, it happens. its also not the worst dustorm in the country, the 1984 one in melbourne was worse. the arctic icecap is melting too, curiously in line with the friggin range of underwater volcanoes spewing hot magma into the ocean.

Went to bed on Earth, Woke up on Mars

[syousef]

That's certainly how it felt. I was up at the crack of dawn and what an eerie red dawn it was. Never seen anything like it. It was interesting that earlier in the morning near dawn it was easier to capture the dust as it was stronger where I was.

Mind you it's nice and Sunny in Sydney today, so as usual this story's a little late.

The Energy of Global Warming

[reporter]

The reporter who wrote the news article [itnews.com.au] says, "But all reported they had come out largely unscathed from the storm, one of the worst on record."

These worst-on-record, high-energy climatic phenomena -- hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, dust storms, etc. -- tell the real story of global warming. Burning fossil fuels emits energy into the atmosphere. Over a long period of time, that energy dissipates into the "cold" of outer space.

Over the past century, this injection of energy into the atmosphere was caused by the (very) roughly 1 billion Westerners. In the current century, there will be roughly 3 billion (including the Indians and the Chinese, who are buying cars left and right) apes who are injecting energy into the atmosphere.

Will the "cold" of outer space absorb enough surplus heat from the atmosphere at a sufficiently fast rate? Is anyone using a supercomputer to model this heat equation?

What sort of climatic catastrophy will occur when 3 billion apes -- with their automobiles, power plants, lawn mowers, etc. -- inject a daily, massive pulse of energy into the atmosphere?

Re:Kanye ...

[maglor_83]

You have to admit, the Melbourne one [iprimus.com.au] does look pretty cool!

Re:Old news... happened yesterday!

[theTerribleRobbo]

Yep. Here's what it looked like yesterday:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/E_Aust_dust_storm_-_MODIS_Terra_1km_-_23_Sept_2009.jpg [wikimedia.org]

The coast of Queensland is that as-yet-untouched bit up the top-right there. :-)

Re:The Energy of Global Warming

[rtb61]

The dust/topsoil has nothing to do with global warming, it is all about farmers ploughing up their fields without keeping a close eye on weather forecasts (can be tricky), or failing to shift to more modern farming techniques http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming [wikipedia.org]. Sticking them with a fine, especially the large globally owned corporate farms might put an end to these man made storms.

Oddly enough when it comes to green house impact these topsoil storms reduce global warming as they add necessary trace elements to the oceans which promote carbon consuming algae etc. but not really the best way to go about it.

Re:Went to bed on Earth, Woke up on Mars

[TapeCutter]

Lived here nearly 50yrs and the climate certainly has been fucked up for the last 10 of those. In particular I now consistently get a layer of dust on my car in Melbourne in winter time. That "Mars feeling" is a good description of what it was like in Melbourne a couple of summers ago, except it was smoke from bushfires that shrouded the city for almost a month, we've had smoke/dust in the past that lasted for a day or two but not every day for 4 weeks.