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January 31, 2008
Marc Morano: Pielke JR (not SR) Takes on Critics of Senate 400 Plus Scientist Report!
Roger Pielke, Jr. is a believer in man-made global warming. Pielke Jr. directs the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and also is an associate professor of environmental studies. So the article below is a very significant slam against Andrew Dessler, Eli Rabett and Raymond Pierrehumbert.
Pielke JR (not SR) Takes on Critics of Senate 400 ‘Consensus Busters’ Scientist Report!
Pielke Jr. Slams ‘Attack Dog climate scientists’ engaging in ‘Character Assassination’ of Scientists on Senate Report
Excerpt: And this leads to the repugnant behavior of the attack dog climate scientists who otherwise would like to be taken seriously. By engaging in the character assassination of people who happen to find themselves on Senator Inhofe’s list they reinforce the absurd notion that scientific claims can be adjudicated solely by head counts and a narrow view of professional qualifications. They can’t. (See this enlightening and amusing discussion by Dan Sarewitz of leading experts arguing over who is qualified to comment on climate issues.) But by suggesting that knowledge claims can be judged by credentials the attack dog scientists reinforce an anti-democratic authoritarian streak found in the activist wing of the climate science community. Of course, from the perspective of the activist scientists such attacks may be effective if they dissuade other challenges to orthodoxy, but surely climate scientists deserving of the designation should be encouraging challenges to knowledge claims, rather than excoriating anyone who dares to challenge their beliefs. […]The climate science community – or at least its most publicly visible activist wing – seems to be working as hard as possible to undercut the legitimacy and the precarious trust than society provides in support of activities of the broader scientific community. Senator Inhofe is a politician, and plays politics. If activist climate scientists wish to play the Senator’s game, then don’t be surprised to see common wisdom viewing these activists more as political players than trustworthy experts. If this is correct then maybe the Senator is a bit more astute than given credit for.
Posted by Paul at 06:36 PM | Comments (35) | TrackBack
Natural Gas from Bacteria: A Renewable Resource Linked to Climate Change?
A new paper published in the journal Geology suggests that it may be possible to seed carbon-rich environments with bacteria to create natural gas reservoirs. The study may also help explain high levels of methane in the atmosphere that occurred between ice ages, a trend recorded in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica.
Read more in ScienceDaily: 'Natural Gas Formation By Bacteria Linked To Climate Change And Renewable Energy'
The original paper is here:
Geology
Article: pp. 139–142 Volume 36, Issue 2 (February 2008)
A new model linking atmospheric methane sources to Pleistocene glaciation via methanogenesis in sedimentary basins
M.J. Formolo1, J.M. Salacup1, S.T. Petsch1, A.M. Martini2, and K. Nüsslein3
1. Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts–Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA, 2. Department of Geology, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002, USA, 3. Department of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts–Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
Methane (CH4) is an important greenhouse gas and amplifier of climate change. However, the causes of atmospheric CH4 variations over glacial-interglacial cycles remain unresolved. We propose that microbial methanogenesis along the shallow margins of sedimentary basins provides a source of atmospheric CH4 temporally connected with both advance and retreat of continental ice sheets. Extensive biodegradation of hydrocarbons in the Antrim Shale Formation, Michigan, United States, is associated with an active subsurface consortium of fermentative and methanogenic microorganisms. This activity was initially stimulated when saline formation waters were diluted by meltwater derived from overriding Pleistocene ice sheets. During glaciation, CH4 produced by this community accumulated in the shale at a rate of 1 Tg CH4 per 1000 yr as a result of ice coverage and increased hydrostatic pressure. We estimate that at present the Antrim Shale contains only 12%–25% of the cumulative mass of CH4 generated in the shale over the Pleistocene, indicating that CH4 that had accumulated during glaciation was subsequently released following ice-sheet retreat. While release from the Antrim Shale represents only a small part of the global CH4 budget, when extended to other glaciated sedimentary basins, subsurface methanogenesis may generate a substantial, previously unrecognized source of atmospheric CH4 during deglaciation.
Keywords: methane, biogeochemistry, black shale, glaciation
Posted by Paul at 06:13 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
More on Global Non-Warming
The UK's CRU has updated its HadCRUT3v temperatures. Global average anomalies for November and December 2007 are now present but are provisional for a few months in case late data arrives.
No wonder newspaper reports haven't mentioned it - November's global temperature anomaly of 0.258 was the lowest since October 2000's 0.201 and December 2007 was 0.221. The annual global average anomaly for 2007 is currently shown as 0.398, or the coolest since year 2000.
The annual average for the Southern Hemisphere in 2007 was the lowest since 1996. November and December temperatures were the coolest since 1992.
The annual average for the Northern Hemisphere remained at the 2002-2006 level. A very warm start to the year offset the cooling late in the year.
Global data at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt.
Other data available via
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
(under "HadCRUT3v" in table about 50% down the page).
John McLean
Posted by Paul at 05:38 PM | Comments (63) | TrackBack
Moving to the Cliffs
I sold my home in Brisbane last year and I've now decided to live in a part of Australia known as The Blue Mountains.
According to Wikipedia the mountains are not as the name suggests, a range of mountains, "but rather a series of cliffs surrounding a plateau with rugged eroded gorges of up to 760 metres depth".
This view over Jamison's Valley is a short walk from my new home
The town of Katoomba, where I live, is surrounded by national park or conservation reserve and I'm enjoying the great diversity of birdlife in my garden.
Gang-Gang Cockatoo, Katoomba, January 31, 2008
Satin Bower Bird, Katoomba, January 27, 2008
And along with the new house and garden, I've got a new hair cut and hair colour. The glasses are old, but I usually take them off for photographs!
Jennifer with new hair colour, Katoomba, January 31, 2008
Posted by jennifer at 04:53 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Weblog Cost-Recovery
Do you see what I see? There is a new ‘Donate’ feature on the home-page of The Politics & Environment Blog. Its purpose is self-evident and it is hoped that members of our weblog community will consider availing themselves of the facility to help share the load, as it were.
Since the 14th April 2005, when the site was first launched, over 1,515 entries have been published eliciting some 41,440 comments. It has become quite the gathering place for our community of interest. Whilst we are often conflicted by ideology on issues raised, we also embrace strong environmental values, which for many would include sustainability and ‘user-pays’. It could be said that expenditure and environment often make for strange bedfellows, but the fact is, there is a growing cost to the maintenance and operation of the weblog.
In another popular gathering place, visitors to the Daintree rainforest consistently express strong expectations that the destination will reveal sightings of some of Australia’s most unique wildlife in natural habitat. Unfortunately, the majority are unsuccessful and not because the ecological values of the landscape fall short of the mark, but that the travel-style is so completely contradictory.
Three-quarters of the half-million (or so) travellers per year are bound to the travel-intensive itineraries of day-visitation out of Cairns or Port Douglas; only a quarter stay overnight. There is also a significant destination bias, with summer holidays from the northern hemisphere and escapees from the winter chill of southern states, supplying the largest numbers of overnight visitors to the winter rainforest at is most dormant.
Elusive encounters with rainforest beauties, like the (above) male Orange-thighed tree-frog (Litoroia xanthomera), are few and far between. Visitors would be well-advised to travel into the rainforest at the hottest, wettest time of the year and to engage the expertise of a local inhabitant, to maximise prospects for successful sightings. However, to do so they would need to stridently go against the flow and direct their travel dollars more purposefully.
Perhaps the same could be said of the weblog; a purposeful direction of economic support might bolster the vitality of the forum even more substantially than the rigour of free comment.
Posted by neil at 07:07 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Another Climate Scare Goes into Reverse
I can barely keep up with the current raft of peer reviewed papers that drive yet more nails into the coffin of climate alarmism. Following on from the fading huricane scare that I recently blogged about here, a new paper published in Nature on 17th January, further destroys the myth that ocean currents will slow due to global warming:
The scientific community has long believed that as global warming continues and large amounts of freshwater ice melt into the ocean, the ocean's circulation will slow. This would have a catastrophic impact on the environment as vividly, if somewhat overdramatically, portrayed in the film "The Day After Tomorrow." But a paper published last week in Nature magazine, the result of several studies of past and possible future weather, says that in fact the very opposite is true and ocean circulation will become stronger as the icecaps melt.
Eric Schwartz, Arizona Daily Star, 30 January 2008
The evidence is piling up, that those models predicting a weakened ocean circulation in the coming decades are wrong.
Joellen Russell, University of Arizona, Russell, 30 January 2008
Current climate-system models say that the ocean's overturning circulation will weaken over the next century, but these predictions might not rest on a solid foundation... From the observations, it is clear that large circulation changes took place, and it seems unlikely that circulation changes of this magnitude could have happened without substantial changes in the wind forcing. It seems that the information from the past is telling us to expect a stronger oceanic circulation in the warmer climate to come.
J. R. Toggweiler & Joellen Russell, Nature 17 January 2008
The full paper is here:
Nature 451, 286-288 (17 January 2008)
Ocean circulation in a warming climate
J. R. Toggweiler 1) & Joellen Russell 2)
1) J. R. Toggweiler is at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton, New Jersey 08542, USA.
2) Joellen Russell is in the Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
Correspondence should be addressed to J.R.T. (Email: robbie.toggweiler@noaa.gov).
Climate models predict that the ocean's circulation will weaken in response to global warming, but the warming at the end of the last ice age suggests a different outcome.
Enjoy!
Hat tip to Benny Peiser's CCNet.
Posted by Paul at 05:37 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
You Can't Tax the Sun
Yes, if you can't tax the Sun, the current highly politicised state of climate science suggests that there isn't much point spending money on understanding the Sun either.
I refer to this article on the BBC website: 'Space weather science rues cuts'
Excerpt: The field of science dedicated to understanding "space weather" - which can pose hazards to satellites and aircraft - may be wiped out in the UK. That is the verdict of experts responding to UK physics and astronomy cuts made as administrators seek to plug an £80m hole in their finances.
Tracking the Sun's changing activity is vital for managing radiation doses and for protecting aircraft electronics. It is also of economic importance, since it costs airlines to deviate from flight paths.
Blog contributor Arnost observes:
One of the risks that the world faces, as more and more funds are diverted to AGW and related projects, is that "real" science will get under-funded.
This is a case in point - understanding Solar Terrestrial Physics is critical. If adequate warning of solar activity is not provided, Solar Flares / Coronal Mass Emissions etc. may fry satellite electronics (if they aren't shut down), and in worst cases may cause aircraft (esp. in trans-polar routes) to suffer major electronic failure putting lives at
risk.
It is of course ironic that the first cuts are made to the Solar Terrestrial Physics field - as this is the major threat to the CO2 driven AGW thesis in that a viable counter-theory may be found as a by-product of monitoring / predicting solar behaviour.
Posted by Paul at 04:51 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack
IPCC Chairman Tries to Explain Global Non-Warming
The head of the UN IPCC is sounding like a salesman who is worried about the quality of his product:
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century. "One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.
So, Pachauri has noticed that the natural 'El Nino' driven record year for instrumentally measured 'global average temperature' remains as 1998. We are now in 2008, Rather than admit to the possibility that ever increasing CO2 emissions don't seem to be pushing up global temperatures, he is looking for another excuse.
Read more on Pielke Jr's excellent Prometheus blog.
Posted by Paul at 04:40 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
January 30, 2008
Would Nathan Dam have Stopped Reef Flooding?
There has been a lot of rain in central Queensland over the last month. Water has been flowing over the Fairbairn dam spillway and the Nogoa River has flooded the town of Emerald with over 2,000 residents seeking emergency accommodation. The Nogoa River flows into the MacKenzie River which flows into the Fitzroy River which flows into the Great Barrier Reef.
According to environmental researcher Alison Jones floodwaters flowing down the Fitzroy River to the Great Barrier Reef will kill off masses of coral around the Keppel Islands.
So, according to Jones, floodwaters are bad for the reef.
The Dawson River, also flows into the Fitzroy River, and was to have a massive dam built in its headwaters. But development of the Nathan Dam was blocked through a court action brought by the Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
If the Nathan dam had been built on the Dawson River would there now be less flooding of the Great Barrier Reef, or would there be not enough flooding? Is there such a things as just the right amount of flooding?
Posted by jennifer at 11:46 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Instability in Sustainability: Paraphrasing Aynsley Kellow
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) recently released a statement on climate change which began, ''The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming."
Implicit in this sentence, and implicit in the concept of 'sustainability', is the idea that there is such a thing as a steady state ...nature in balance. But as Aynsley Kellow wrote way back in 2002:
"There is no clear consensus on what sustainability means, but there are some fundamental questions inherent in all this. Sustainable for how long? Are ecosystems to be sustained? Or should the emphasis be on the sustainability of human societies? If so, should it be all humanity? Nation-states? Or subgroups, including traditional societies, threatened by development activities? (see Sneddon, 2000).
"Many of the conceptions which aim to settle this matter rest – as eventually did the ESD [Ecologically Sustainable Development] process in Australia – on a notion of ecological sustainability. But how helpful is this? Ecologists once thought that nature left free of human interference would eventually reach a steady state, but over the past 30 years ecological disturbance has replaced the climax community among most ecological scientists – a revolution to which Australian Ralph Slatyer made a significant contribution.
"It is a point of some interest that in the popular imagination, the stability of the climax community is probably still the dominant 'myth of nature', sustained by constant repetition by political ecologists and, like sustained yield in Germany, no doubt offering the promise of stability in uncertain and rapidly changing times.
"An ecological science in which perturbation, turbulence, disturbance, succession and flux are the norm creates insurmountable problems for ecocentric philosophical positions. While we are not reduced to seeing nature in purely utilitarian terms, it does place the emphasis back on human choice – in Botkin's (1990) terms, we must choose among the discordant harmonies of nature those elements we wish to retain. We must reject nature as providing norms which guide how we must live and accept instead that we are part of a living, changing system; we can chose to accept, use, or control elements to make for a habitable existence, both singly and individually.
"An emphasis on disturbance and chaos also suggests we need to be cautious about assuming we can manage resources at sustained yield ...
Read more here: http://www.science.org.au/sats2002/kellow.htm
from: SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME 2002: ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM. Transition to sustainability . 3 May 2002. Social aspects of sustainability. by Professor Aynsley Kellow
Posted by jennifer at 10:08 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
January 29, 2008
What If The Climatologist's Have Got it Wrong?
"Just suppose, if you are able, that significant man-made climate change is false; further, that it cannot happen, and that all changes to the climate system are due to external forcings, such as those caused by changes in solar output. Just suppose all this is true for the sake of argument.
"Now put yourself in the place of a climatologist, one of the many hundreds, in fact, who was involved with the IPCC and so shared in that great validator, the Nobel Peace Prize.
"You have spent a career devoted to showing that mankind, through various forms of naughtiness, has significantly influenced the climate, and has caused temperatures to grow out of control. Your team, at a major university, has built and contributed to various global climate models. Graduate students have worked on these models. Team members have traveled the world and lectured on their results. Many, many papers were written about their output, and so forth..."
I am quoting Statistician William M. Briggs** who explores this issue by considering four different alternatives for today's climatologists:
1. Abandon the model and seek a new career
2. Discover where the model went wrong; publish results admitting why and how you were wrong
3. Sit and wait: after all, the temperature is bound to increase sooner or later, hence validating your model
4. Believe that the model cannot be wrong, else so many people wouldn’t believe it, and so posit some new source that is “holding back” warming, and only if that new source weren’t there, your model would be perfect.
Read more here: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/01/28/is-climatology-a-pseudoscience/
----------------------
** Is climatology a pseudoscience?
January 28th, 2008
Posted by jennifer at 04:03 PM | Comments (74) | TrackBack
US President Promises New Fund for Secure and Clean Energy
"To build a future of energy security, we must trust in the creative genius of American researchers and entrepreneurs and empower them to pioneer a new generation of clean energy technology. (Applause.)
"Our security, our prosperity, and our environment all require reducing our dependence on oil. Last year, I asked you to pass legislation to reduce oil consumption over the next decade, and you responded. Together we should take the next steps: Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions. (Applause.)
"Let us increase the use of renewable power and emissions-free nuclear power. (Applause.) Let us continue investing in advanced battery technology and renewable fuels to power the cars and trucks of the future. (Applause.)
"Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources. And let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases. (Applause.)
This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride. (Applause.)
The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change. And the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way toward the development of cleaner and more energy-efficient technology. (Applause.)
To read the last 'State of the Union' address from US President George Bush click here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080128-13.html
According to ABC Online this represents a commitment of US$2 billion (A$2.25 billion).
Posted by jennifer at 03:34 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 28, 2008
Australia's Largest Lepidopterans
The Bleeding Heart (Homalanthus novoguineensis) is the preferred food plant of the caterpillar (above), which attains a length of 12 cm and produces Australia's largest moth: The Hercules (Coscinocera hercules).
The female moth has a slightly paler and larger wing area than the male (below), whose wingspan reaches up to 27 cms.
The female Cairns Birdwing (Ornithoptera euphorion) (below) is Australia's largest endemic butterfly species, reaching a wingspan of up to 16 cm. Males are usually a few centimeters smaller.
The caterpillar of this species (below) prefers to feed upon the native rainforest vine Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia tagala).
Posted by neil at 09:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 27, 2008
Different Measures of Global Temperature: A Note from James Cripwell
Physicist F. James Cripwell, a former scientist with the UK’s Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and now a member of the notorious list of 400 skeptical scientists, is of the opinion that we need an independent study to compare and contrast the four ways of measuring world temperature anomalies. Following is a copy of recent communications between the physicist and Marc Morano in which he explains why:
Dear Marc,
I write with respect to your latest communication about Alexander Cockburn. He seems to have made an important and fundamental error. He writes "While the world’s climate is on a warming trend...". I do not believe the world's climate is on a warming trend, though I cannot as yet prove this.
It is quite true that since somewhere around 1970, the world has warmed up. What is not clear is that, as of now, the world is still warming up. And, of course, "now" is moving. As time goes on, I believe the indications that the world has ceaased warming, and has started to cool, will become more and more obvious.
As I have noted before, there are four major agencies which measure average global temperature anomalies, and report them of a monthly basis. These are NASA/GISS, NCDC/NOAA, HAD/CRU and RSS/MSU.
The first, NASA/GISS data, shows that at present, average global temperatures are increasing. The other three show the opposite, that they are decreasing. I am suspicious that Jim Hansen and Gavin Schmidt are closely connected with the NASA/GISS data, but they are very competent scientists with impressive credentials.
If you ask for a linear least squares regression analysis, you find a linear trend of increasing temperatures. However, if you ask for a non-linear analysis, NASA/GISS shows an increasing trend, but the other three show that temperatures has passed through a maximum, and are now decreasing. What is missing is an independent study to compare and contrast the four ways of measuring world temperature anomalies, coming up with an opinion as to which is "best", whatever this means.
Until we have such a stduy, we are unlikely to make any progress in this area. Or we must wait until the data showing that world temperatures are decreasing becomes too overwhelming to be ignored.
Sincerely,
Jim Cripwell
Posted by jennifer at 08:15 AM | Comments (111) | TrackBack
January 26, 2008
Hedgehogs (Part 2)
Hi Jennifer,
In the animal world we have heard about the most strange adoptions, for example a lion that adopted an antelope, a turtle that adopted a rhino baby and the list goes on. Here's a story about hedgehogs that adopted a cleaning brush as their mother :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=478026&in_page_id=1
Many hedgehogs are taken into care each year in Sweden, mostly injured animals and young ones unlikely to survive hibernation.
Hedgehog litter size averages 4, but can be up to 9.
Hedgehogs released back into the wild have a high survival rate. A majority adapt to life in the wild quickly, find their food and make nests and quickly learn their ways.
Their main enemies are badgers and cars (road accidents).
Ann Novek
Sweden
---------------------------------------------
see part 1 here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002469.html
and if you can cope with the really gruesome, click here, but warning the photograph may cause distress: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002374.html
Posted by jennifer at 05:18 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 25, 2008
More Male Crocodiles in a Warmer World?
This dominant 4.5metre male Estuarine Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) resides a kilometre or so downstream from my own abode on Cooper Creek; a proximity that we never forget!
It has long been known that crocodile gender is determined by temperature. If the temperature of egg incubation is cool, around 30 degrees C, the hatchlings are all female. Warmer temperatures, around 34 degrees C, hatch all males. There is also strong population bias towards females; often as high as 10 to 1.
For about thirty years, this skewed ratio was thought to provide an evolutionary advantage, whereby sex ratio optimises survivorship considerations.
In a recent News in Science article by Dani Cooper, entitled ‘Sex-change lizards settle a hot topic’, Professor Rick Shine of Sydney University and his former student Dr Daniel Warner, now of Iowa State University, report that they have proven this 30-year-old theory.
Studying the relatively short-lived Jacky dragon (Amphibolurus muricatus), which produces off-spring within one year of hatching and lives no longer than four years, the researchers found that hormonal manipulation of gender determination had no effect on the health and survival of the hatchlings, but the natural males were five to 10 times better in terms of mating and producing offspring, while the natural females produced four to five times more offspring.
It was therefore shown that the incubation temperature that produces that sex in nature optimised reproductive success of each sex.
Posted by neil at 08:42 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Stern Report Reviewed
Dear Jennifer,
Australia's Productivity Commission has finally reviewed the Stern Report [the report commissioned by the British government on the economics of climate change] and according to newspaper reports has attacked it for its advocacy and dubious costings.
The Productivity Commission document is available via http://www.pc.gov.au/research/staffworkingpaper/sternreview
Reports in The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian are available at the following links
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23105165-11949,00.html
The ABC is currently silent on the matter.
Cheers
John McLean
Posted by jennifer at 08:24 AM | Comments (32) | TrackBack
More Global Gore-ing: Al's Virtual World
Speaking in Davos, at the World Economic Forum, Al Gore is quoted saying, 'Climate change 'significantly worse' than feared.'
Gore claims, "the climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than those on the pessimistic side of the IPCC projections had warned us." Apparently there are new forecasts that the North Pole ice caps "could" disappear during summer within 5 years. We can hold you to that one Al.
Mmmm! Since 1990, the IPCC has lowered both it's temperature and sea level rise forecasts, in 1995, 2001 and 2007. In fact, the IPCC seems to have abandoned decadal sea level forecasts in AR4 and gone for an unverifiable 90-year projection/prediction.
If any readers know where Al gets his worsening 'climate crisis' information from, let us know.
Posted by Paul at 08:19 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack
AGU Climate Consensus Statement: 9 Speak for 50,000?
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) have released this statement on Climate Change:
The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system - including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons - are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956-2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change. A sustained research effort, involving many AGU members and summarized in the 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to improve our scientific understanding of the climate.
During recent millennia of relatively stable climate, civilization became established and populations have grown rapidly. In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change - an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade - is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and-if sustained over centuries-melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO2 must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections.
With climate change, as with ozone depletion, the human footprint on Earth is apparent. The cause of disruptive climate change, unlike ozone depletion, is tied to energy use and runs through modern society. Solutions will necessarily involve all aspects of society. Mitigation strategies and adaptation responses will call for collaborations across science, technology, industry, and government. Members of the AGU, as part of the scientific community, collectively have special responsibilities: to pursue research needed to understand it; to educate the public on the causes, risks, and hazards; and to communicate clearly and objectively with those who can implement policies to shape future climate.
Human Impacts on ClimateAdopted by Council December 2003
Revised and Reaffirmed December 2007
Marc Morano's response:
“The AGU Board issued a statement on climate change without putting it to a vote of the group's more than 50,000 members. Its sweeping claims, drafted by nine committee members, rely heavily on long term computer model projections, cherry-picking of data and a one-sided view of recent research. As with the recent statements by the AMS and the NAS, this is the product of a small circle of scientists who all share the same point of view, and who failed to put their statement to a vote of the AGU members on whose behalf they now claim to speak. As such it amounts to nothing more than a restatement of the opinion of a small group, rather than a consensus document.”
Marc Morano
Communications Director
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) Inhofe Staff
Posted by Paul at 08:08 AM | Comments (77) | TrackBack
January 23, 2008
The Azure Kingfisher
Like most birds that I see at night, this Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea) was roosting strategically on the distal end of isolated vegetation, to forecast the vibrations of predators. In this instance, the climbing bamboo (Bambusa moreheadiana) provided safe harbour.
What was most unusual, though, was the sighting itself; being only my second of such a species in fourteen years of almost nightly scrutiny. The first, many years ago, was overhanging a section of Cooper Creek, where they are seen frequently throughout the day. In this sighting, the bird was quite a distance up an officially un-named tributary feeder creek, but perfectly positioned for a photograph.
I find it very significant that such a beautifully conspicuous plumage can remain so well hidden over the years. As an individual species, how can its part in the natural landscape be understood and appreciated when it is so adept at concealment? Its importance to other species and the interrelationships that define its ecological character are even less accessible.
The longer I persevere with my immersion into this ancient and secretive world, the more insurmountable its complexity becomes. Very clearly, one lifetime will not be enough. I take a degree of comfort from the obvious advantage of my children, benefiting from the contribution of the knowledge that their parents and grandparents are able to impart, but additionally, from the knowledge that they gain from their own observations and interrelationships. With only three generations I can see the growing accumulation of intellectual property.
Just imagine the intellectual insight of the thousand generations accrued by Australia’s indigenous people, the longest surviving human culture in the world.
Posted by neil at 07:54 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Loehle Temperature Reconstruction Corrected
In response to criticisms from Gavin Schmidt, Craig Loehle and J Huston McCulloch have published a correction to Loehle's temperature reconstruction that uses 18 non-tree ring proxies. The pdf of original paper and the correction can be found here.
The corrected Figure 2 can be seen below:
The MWP and LIA remain prominent, in contrast to 'Hockey Stick' style reconstructions. However, in terms of reconstructions involving tree rings, as Steve McIntyre points out, if Yamal instead of Polar Urals update are used, you can get Modern Warm Period higher than MWP and vice versa; similarly with Indigirka versus bristlecones; or depending on Mann PC1 bristlecones versus Ababneh bristlecones.
In short, the jury is still out on whether the MWP had a global influence or if it was warmer than the Modern Warm Period. Nevertheless, the Loehle reconstruction makes a valuable contribution to the debate and should be included in the IPCC spaghetti graph that replaced the Mann et al Hockey Stick in AR4.
Posted by Paul at 06:11 PM | Comments (48) | TrackBack
New Paper: Warm Seas May Mean Fewer Hurricanes
A new paper has been published in GRL by Wang, C., and S. Lee, entitled: 'Global warming and United States landfalling hurricanes.'
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has an article about the new study here:
Scientists: Warm seas may mean fewer hurricanes
Excerpt: Following in the footsteps of an earlier study, government scientists on Tuesday said warmer oceans should translate to fewer Atlantic hurricanes striking the United States.
The reason: As sea surface temperatures warm globally, sustained vertical wind shear increases. Wind shear makes it difficult for storms to form and grow.
"Using data extending back to the middle 19th century, we found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. landfalling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up," Chunzai Wang, a physical oceanographer and climate scientist with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, said in a prepared statement.
The Abstract of the paper states:
A secular warming of sea surface temperature occurs almost everywhere over the global ocean. Here we use observational data to show that global warming of the sea surface is associated with a secular increase of tropospheric vertical wind shear in the main development region (MDR) for Atlantic hurricanes. The increased wind shear coincides with a weak but robust downward trend in U.S. landfalling hurricanes, a reliable measure of hurricanes over the long term. Warmings over the tropical oceans compete with one another, with the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans increasing wind shear and the tropical North Atlantic decreasing wind shear. Warmings in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans win the competition and produce increased wind shear which reduces U.S. landfalling hurricanes. Whether future global warming increases the vertical wind shear in the MDR for Atlantic hurricanes will depend on the relative role induced by secular warmings over the tropical oceans.
Received 18 October 2007; accepted 13 December 2007; published 23 January 2008.
Keywords: global warming; Atlantic hurricanes; climate variability.
Posted by Paul at 09:11 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Western Antarctic Peninsula Snow Accumulation Since 1850
A new paper has been published in GRL showing that the Antarctic is accumulating snow. The paper by Thomas, E. R., G. J. Marshall, and J. R. McConnell is entitled: 'A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850.'
This shouldn't surprsie the IPCC who say "the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain in mass due to increased snowfall.” Accumulation was measured using ice cores and the largest increase is in the Gomez area. Figure 1 (below) from the paper shows data for the Dyer Plateau, James Ross Island, and the ITASE01_05 core, which also shows an increase (since the 1970s).
Figure 1. Annual accumulation at Gomez (dashed blue) and running decadal mean accumulation at Gomez (solid blue), Dyer Plateau (red), James Ross Island (black) and ITASE01_05 (green) in meters of water equivalent per year (mweq y-1) between 1850 and 2006 (from Thomas et al., 2008)
The Abstract states:
We present results from a new medium depth (136 metres) ice core drilled in a high accumulation site (73.59°S, 70.36°W) on the south-western Antarctic Peninsula during 2007. The Gomez record reveals a doubling of accumulation since the 1850s, from a decadal average of 0.49 mweq y−1 in 1855–1864 to 1.10 mweq y−1 in 1997–2006, with acceleration in recent decades. Comparison with published accumulation records indicates that this rapid increase is the largest observed across the region. Evaluation of the relationships between Gomez accumulation and the primary modes of atmospheric circulation variability reveals a strong, temporally stable and positive relationship with the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). Furthermore, the SAM is demonstrated to be a primary factor in governing decadal variability of accumulation at the core site (r = 0.66). The association between Gomez accumulation and ENSO is complex: while sometimes statistically significant, the relationship is not temporally stable. Thus, at decadal scales we can utilise the Gomez accumulation as a suitable proxy for SAM variability but not for ENSO.
Received 31 October 2007; accepted 6 December 2007; published 12 January 2008.
Keywords: snow accumulation; Southern Annular Mode; Antarctica.
Posted by Paul at 12:42 AM | Comments (27)
January 22, 2008
The Sun and Us by Al Gullon
Al Gullon gives the whole transportation and climate change debate a politically scientific angle.
The following article by Al Gullon appeared in the April/May 2007 edition of the H3B Media publication 'Thinking Highways' and is reproduced here with kind permission.
"I hasten to add that it is not 'another opinion piece'. I put many hours (and my two undergraduate degrees) into an analysis of the IPCC and NASA data on trends in "global warming" and solar radiation. The linked article is my attempt to "vulgarize" the data for the intelligent non-scientists among us."
Sincerely,
Al
A. C. Gullon, BSc., PEng.
Automobiles+Concepts+Environments
Consulting on Safety & the Environment
Technical Articles & Lectures
Web: www.alsaces.ca
Rule #1 Regleof/deampSYdalalu
"It's the happy thought that'll kill ya!"
"C'est la pensée heureuse qui t'tuera!"
The question “why is there another global warming article in Thinking Highways?” was answered just as I finally decided to put my thoughts onto paper. The radio reported on the UK’s “60 per cent by 2050” announcement and the news was not good on two fronts, except for those moved more by faith or photo opportunities than science. Not good, because that grandiose goal ignores both the economic benefits of improving productivity – for every member of human society – and, with respect to the required/expected improvements in fuel efficiency, the iron ‘law of diminishing returns,’ not to mention several past and recent scientific developments. Not good, because of the probability that the pursuit of such a false and unattainable goal will divert material and human resources, in the ITS community as elsewhere, into dead ends (e.g. CO2 payments to governments who have so abused both their citizens and their economy that their productivity is already in decline) at the same time as everyone’s standard of living declines – in tempo with decreasing productivity.
Enough of the ’why’ and now for the ’what’
When the Kyoto Accord and the working methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) first came to my attention I was; pensioned off after 23 years as technocrat with Environment Canada, initially very understanding, even sympathetic at seeing the work of the climatologists severely misrepresented in summaries and sound bites prepared by the politicians. Later, when it appeared that at least some of my fellow scientists were pre-misrepresenting their work in order to remain ‘on the list’ for research contracts, sympathy turned to shame and I was looking for ways to disown my science degree. Fortunately I also have an engineering degree to fall back on. Whereas it is the scientist’s job to develop an understanding of what is theoretically possible, including speculating on scale-ups from proven laboratory results, it is the engineer’s job to calculate whether the laws of nature thus revealed can be economically combined to produce useful objects and/or processes which can be (safely) placed at the service of humans. This ‘division of labour’ works well in the private sector but is derailed when politicians arrive, few of whom are scientists and fewer engineers. In whichever country or issue they pay no attention to the engineers and, as in global warming, seem to extrapolate on the scientists’ speculations.
Honest to a fault?
It was in October 1999 that Prof. Dr. Dusan Gruden, now retired but then Porsche’s Director for Environment and Energy, responded to my invitation to bring their message on global warming to Ottawa. As I had heard his presentation at several international meetings, it’s actually a two-part message: firstly, “The combustion of petroleum products by the private automobile contributes an insignificant portion of the global CO2 emissions” and, secondly, “NEVERTHELESS, the automobile industry will continue its ongoing, and fruitful (an average of 1 per cent per year over the past 25 years), efforts to improve fuel consumption.” Unfortunately the emotional controversy surrounding the first part often obscures the second part of the message. The research behind the presentation [Emissions and Air Quality, Lenz and Cozzarini, SAE Publications (with 148 references!)] was carried out by Dr. Gruden’s alma mater, the Technical University of Vienna. Given the ‘facts’ we have been fed by the media, the first part is surprising, at least. Nevertheless it is easily understandable (even by those of us without Dr. Gruden’s academic qualifications) once you realize that true scientists are the most honest inhabitants of this planet. They won’t even let you misunderstand the accuracy of their calculations. They insist on providing what they call an ‘error band’ around the answer. (Unfortunately they can do little about the misquotes and misrepresentations of their work by the mass media – and by the small and large “p” politicians.)
Being precise about imprecision
You ask for the answer to the ‘burning question of the day' (pun intended) and they don’t give you one answer, they give you three! Translated into everyday English itcomes out something like, “Well, using currently published research on presently known emission sources, our best guess at the CO2 emissions from natural sources is 770 Gigatonnes per year. However, many of the ‘measurements’ are in fact of dubious accuracy so it could be as low as 600 or as high as a number slightly north of 1000.” “What about the automobile?” you say. And they say, “We have some better numbers for total man-made CO2. It’s somewhere close to 28. Say plus or minus 2. And we’ve got some real good numbers for the personal automobile itself. All you have to know really is the amount of gasoline (of each formulation) sold each year and, because it is everywhere subject to taxes, every government keeps a good count. What? Oh, yes. The number is 1.54 ... roughly. Plus or minus 0.075.” We can now put the automobile’s role in CO2 emissions in perspective. We will ignore that huge error band (600 to 1000+) for a moment and just focus on the ‘best guess’ 770 for natural emissions to which we will add the maximum amount of manmade (28+2) to get a round number 800 for total global annual emissions of CO2. Within that best-guess total of 800 Gigatonnes/year our automobiles contribute just 1.54. (For the mathematically minded that’s two tenths of 1 per cent.) Somehow the word “insignificant” comes to mind.
0.6 degrees of separation
So, is CO2 even the major driver for the purported Greenhouse Effect? Intrigued by that Porsche presentation I then did some surfing on the Internet for the base IPCC data behind their contention that anthropogenic CO2 was the major driver of the greenhouse effect. I quickly discovered that all the fuss was over a purported warming of just 0.6ºC … over the past century! My first thought was that it was technically impossible to take the earth’s temperature with such precision. However, the next steps proved me wrong on that point. A little more surfing revealed that some scientists were suggesting that small, cyclical variations in the radiation of the sun might be at the root of the observed warming trend. When I put the temperature trendline on a graph with that Solar Cycle (Figure 1) I soon noticed that the small perturbations along the length of the temperature trendline corresponded very well with the Solar Maximums. Whatever might be moving that temperature trendline it was now certain that the technicians manning the weather stations throughout the world were doing an excellent job. An email exchange with the IPCC administration directed me to a downloadable source of the corresponding, century long, trendline for anthropogenic emissions of CO2. When added to Figure 1 it produced a gigantic X through the theory that CO2 was moving the earth’s temperature. The CO2 line rises strongly and steadily right through the mid-century, three decade long decline in the temperature line. Note that this does not disprove the greenhouse effect. CO2 is a minor greenhouse agent, with both water vapour and methane being much stronger. Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine that either of those took that three-decade long drop in mid-century. So, if not a effect, then what is causing the indisputable rise in global temperature? Before leaving Figure 1 for Figure 2 you should note two things about the Solar Irradiance line. Firstly it does show that mid-century decline. Of almost equal importance it carries the adjective ‘reconstructed’. Although no regular measurements of solar irradiation had been made until 1979, irregular measurements could be correlated with sunspots which have been regularly recorded since the early 1600s. In this way scientists could ‘reconstruct’ the probable annual irradiance levels shown in Figure 1.
A completely credible correlation
However, since 1979 satellite measurements have been made of the intensity of the sunlight reaching the top of our atmosphere and regular measurements have been made of CO2 levels near the surface of the earth and oceans. Those measurements and the magic of the Internet have enabled the construction of Figure 2 which both extends Figure 1 into this century and provides a more accurate and detailed look at the past 25 years. The three block-arrows point to the three maxima marking off two Solar Cycles. The first covers the 1980’s and is the standard length of 11 years. The second, however, is only 9-10 years which leads to a higher minimum and thus a higher average annual energy inflow than in the 1980s. This correlates well with the global temperature line over those two decades. When first assembled the correlation between the temperature line and the, rather irregular, solar radiationline was poor (R=0.2). However, while researching on the ‘net I was reminded that volcanoes can have a lengthy impact on global temperatures and so explored both them and El Ninos. As you can see at the bottom of Figure 2 it was an Eureka moment. Actually several moments, because each of these extreme events locked into one of the aforementioned irregularities, until finally all of them were covered. They are colour-coded so that blue indicates an event which pulls the temperature down in their year(s) of operation and red indicates one which tends to raise global temperatures. By mentally moving the temperature line back to where it would have been without each event one can clearly see that the global temperature line has a great visual correspondence with the solar irradiance line. Although it was not done accurately enough to include in this article I did succumb to the temptation of nudging the numbers in the indicated direction in my Excel spread sheet and then ran the correlation again … and the R jumped to 0.6!
The Wrapup
Now all this is most definitely NOT to say that we should do nothing about the energy consumption of the automobile or more generally the energy consumptive nature of today’s human society. What the environmentalists are forgetting is that engineers, including automotive engineers, are the original conservationists. As a personal example, I shudder every time I see a two tonne SUV with only the driver on board. That, however, is a judgement on consumer choice. The engine in that SUV has a very good efficiency (measured as BSFC) and most SUVs employ very sophisticated controls to deliver emission performance much better than the government requires. The problem is that most SUVs have way too much weight for the load they are carrying. I shudder because they are mostly used inefficiently. We must stop whipping the willing horse. Aided by informed consumers automobile engineers will continue progress on improving both engine efficiency and overall vehicle efficiency. In that manner we will usually find that, instead of paying an exorbitant price for minuscule reductions, we will find that environmental improvementswill actually save us money.
For more information about Al Gullon and his findings, go to: www.alsaces.ca
About the author
Mr. Gullon retired from Environment Canada in February, 1996 to establish ACEs. Immediately prior to retirement he had spent five years managing a program which assisted small business in the development of innovative recycling technology. His work experience includes about a decade each as a motor transport officer in the Canadian military, as the chief of motor vehicle emissions for Environment Canada and, latterly, in various technical management positions with that department. He has separate (by ten years) science and engineering degrees and, in his off-hours over the past decade, has been nosing around in economics.
Posted by Paul at 03:35 AM | Comments (107) | TrackBack
January 21, 2008
Volcanic Poles and Glacier Melting
In December I mentioned that global warming may not be the only thing melting Greenland. Scientists have found at least one natural magma hotspot under the Arctic island that could be pitching in.
Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic may also contain active volcanoes.
Now we have reports relating to an article in Nature Geoscience:
Herald Tribune: 'Antarctic volcanoes identified as a possible culprit in glacier melting'
Excerpt: Volcanically, Antarctica is a fairly quiet place. But sometime around 325 B.C., the researchers said, a hidden and still active volcano erupted, puncturing several hundred yards of ice above it.
The Nature Geoscience article:
Published online: 20 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo106
A recent volcanic eruption beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet
Hugh F. J. Corr & David G. Vaughan
Indirect evidence suggests that volcanic activity occurring beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet influences ice flow and sheet stability. However, only volcanoes that protrude through the ice sheet and those inferred from geophysical techniques have been mapped so far. Here we analyse radar data from the Hudson Mountains, West Antarctica, that contain reflections from within the ice that had previously been interpreted erroneously as the ice-sheet bed. We show that the reflections are present within an elliptical area of about 23,000 km2 that contains tephra from an explosive volcanic eruption. The tephra layer is thickest at a subglacial topographic high, which we term the Hudson Mountains Subglacial Volcano. The layer depth dates the eruption at 207 BC (+/-240 years), which matches exceptionally strong but previously unattributed conductivity signals in nearby ice cores. The layer contains 0.019–0.31 km3 of tephra, which implies a volcanic explosive index of 3–4. Production and episodic release of water from the volcano probably affected ice flow at the time of the eruption. Ongoing volcanic heat production may have implications for contemporary ice dynamics in this glacial system.
British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK
Posted by Paul at 08:19 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Ignoring the slaughter of dugongs in Northern Australia
There are two criteria which should be applied to the harvest of an animal species: 1. Are the numbers taken sustainable, and 2. Is the method of killing humane?
At least that’s what I said on ABC Radio National last Friday morning when Steve Cannane asked me why I thought it was hypocritical for Australians to rally against whaling by the Japanese while ignoring the slaughter of dugongs by indigenous Australians.
In reply Steve interviewed Joe Morrison, Executive Officer of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, this morning. Mr Morrison essentially side-stepped the issue of whether dugongs were killed humanely, but he did dispute my claim that 1,000 dugongs are killed in northern Australia each year.
Mr Morrison suggested this number only applied to the Torres Straits. So how many dugongs are killed each year in Northern Australia?
You can listen to both interviews by podcast. The interviews were part of the Breakfast Program and so the podcasts include other interviews and news reports during that segment of the program.
1. Anti-whaling activists released
...The men are about to be handed over to the Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin. Meanwhile, an Australian public policy group is critical of the strong tactics used by conservation groups like the Sea Shepherds and Greenpeace, and the position of the Australian government on the whales issue.
Guests
Paul Watson, Captain of the Steve Irwin
Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, Senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs
Listen here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2008/2141167.htm
2. Whales and dugongs
Last week Breakfast heard from Dr Jennifer Marohasy from the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs who described the Australian Government's anti-whaling position as hypocritical. Dr Marohasy said the Federal Government and conservation groups like Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd are jumping up and down about the slaughter of whales by the Japanese, yet ignoring the killing of more endangered species like dugongs and turtles by Indigenous people in Northern Australia.
Guests
Joe Morrison, Executive Officer of the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA)
Listen here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2008/2142705.htm
Posted by jennifer at 09:48 AM | Comments (51) | TrackBack
'Climate Change Refugees' Not Refugees: A Note from Nichole Hoskin
In the movie The Day After Tomorrow changes in ocean current circulation from global warming result in the northern hemisphere freezeing over and US citizens fleeing to Mexico in search of a warmer environment. In An Inconvenient Truth we are told the world is already too warm with rising sealevels now displacing some Pacific islanders. Meanwhile, in the real world, it seems there really is no such a thing as a climate change refugee ...
Hi Jennifer,
The Refugee Convention establishes a procedure for States to determine whether the individual is entitled to the status of a refugee. Once status determination takes place, with health and security checks, if the individual is a refugee then he/she is entitled to the human rights specified in the Convention--such as access to health care, education, employment, housing, social security etcetera.
The main problem with trying to include people displaced by climate change within the definition in Article 1(A)(2) of the Refugee Convention is that such persons do not meet the requirements of the definition. To be a refugee, an individual must have:
1) crossed an international frontier--ie. be outside of his/her country of origin. If the individual remains in his/her country of origin, then the individual is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) and not a refugee
2) "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted" --the person left his/her country of origin because of the fear of being persecuted --the person left or cannot return to his/her country of origin because of the fear of being persecuted
3) the persecution is for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion
4) the individual is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of his country of origin--the main aim of the Refugee Convention was to attach an individual without the protection of a State to another State.
5) subject to cessation and exception clauses--mainly for war-criminals, serious criminals, and persons under the protection of another State/UN agency.
Since the definition of a refugee requires persecution for one of the five specified reasons (race etcetera), the indiscriminate nature of climate change means that people displaced by climate change are not refugees. The issue of how international law will resolve climate change displacement is only just emerging. However, the only academics that have written papers considering the issue are scientists without legal training, who generally don't understand the definition of a refugee. No legal academics have written about the issue yet. However, Dr Jane McAdam, an expert in Refugee Law, has been getting increasing numbers of questions on this issue from Non-Government Organisations. Jane started the course 'Forced Migration' last year so that she could teach refugee law and consider whether it could extend to other circumstances where people are forcibly displaced, such as climate change, development induced displacement and internal displacement. Jane is also the director of the Centre for Climate Change in the Gilbert and Tobin Public Law Centre at the University of NSW.
While it is possible to open up negotiations for an extension of the Refugee Convention, through an Optional Protocol to vary the original Convention, there is significant resistance to doing this from the UN High Commission for Refugees and legal academics. Under International Law, States must consent to the obligations to be bound by them. At present it is unlikely that States will consent to an extension of their obligations to refugees in the current political climate, where most Developed States are actively pursuing policies to avoid responsibilities under the Refugee Convention.
The other alternative is for the negotiation of a separate treaty to specifically address the needs of people displaced by climate change. It is arguably preferable to adopt this approach, particularly considering the negative perceptions of 'refugees' in media discussions of immigration policy in Developed States (such as Europe, US and Australia). There is also the advantage of creating a definition that allows for arrangements to be made for resettlement before people are actually displaced by climate change, rather than persisting with the crossing an international border requirement.
It is also important to take into account that there were 9.9 million refugees in 2006. The vast majority of those refugees were in Developing States, such as Pakistan with 2.1 million Afghan refugees; and about 2 million Iraqi refugees in Iran, Syria, Jordon and Turkey. Since the international community has failed to equitably share the burden of refugees on Developing States, it is questionable whether increasing the numbers of people within the refugee definition will lead to durable solutions, such as resettlement in another State.
Nichole Hoskin
Posted by jennifer at 08:23 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 19, 2008
List of Climate Change Skeptics Continues to Grow (Part 4)
Hi Jennifer,
Five more scientists have been added to the over 400 scientists in the Minority Senate Report who dispute man-made global warming claims:
1. Physics professor Dr. Frederick Wolf of Keene State College in New Hampshire has taught meteorology and climatology courses for the past 25 years and will be undertaking a sabbatical project on global warming. Wolf recently declared he was skeptical of man-made climate fears. “Several things have contributed to my skepticism about global warming being due to human causes. We all know that the atmosphere is a very complicated system. Also, after studying climate, I am aware that there are cycles of warm and cold periods of varying lengths which are still not completely understood,” Wolf wrote EPW on January 10, 2008. “Also, many, many of the supporters (or believers) of human induced warming have not read the IPCC report AND Al Gore is NOT a climate scientist!” Wolf added. He also rejected the claim that most scientists agree mankind is driving a “climate crisis.” “I am impressed by the number of scientific colleagues who are naturally skeptical about the conclusion of human induced warming,” Wolf added.
2. Biologist Dr. Matthew Cronin, a research professor at the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, called predictions that future global warming would devastate polar bear populations “one extreme case hypothesis.” “We don’t know what the future ice conditions will be, as there is apparently considerable uncertainty in the sea ice models regarding the timing and extent of sea ice loss. Also, polar bear populations are generally healthy and have increased worldwide over the last few decades,” Cronin said in March 2007. “Recent declines in sea ice and indications that polar bears in some areas may be negatively impacted are cause for concern, but in my opinion do not warrant designation of the species as threatened with extinction,” Cronin said. “I believe that consideration of multiple hypotheses regarding the future of sea ice and polar bear populations would provide better science than reliance on one extreme case hypothesis of loss of sea ice and associated drastic declines in polar bear populations,” Cronin said.
3. Senior Meteorologist Dr. Wolfgang P. Thuene was a former analyst and forecaster for the German Weather Service in the field of synoptic meteorology and also worked for the German Environmental Protection Agency. Thuene currently works in the Ministry of Environment and Forests of Rheinland-Pfalz. In 2007, Thuene rejected the idea that mankind is driving global warming. “All temperature and weather observations indicate that the earth isn’t like a greenhouse and that there is in reality no ‘natural greenhouse effect’ which could warm up the earth by its own emitted energy and cause by re-emission a ‘global warming effect’. With or without atmosphere every body looses heat, gets inevitably colder. This natural fact, formulated by Sir Isaac Newton in his ‘cooling law’, led Sir James Dewar to the construction of the ‘Dewar flask’ to minimize heat losses from a vessel. But the most perfect thermos flask can’t avoid that the hot coffee really gets cold. The hypothesis of a natural and a man-made ‘greenhouse effect’, like eugenics, belongs to the category ‘scientific errors,” Thuene wrote on February 24, 2007.
“The infrared thermography is a smoking gun proof that the IPCC-hypothesis cannot be right. The atmosphere does not act like the glass of a greenhouse which primarily hinders the convection! The atmosphere has an open radiation window between 8 and 14 microns and is therefore transparent to infrared heat from the earth’s surface. This window cannot be closed by the distinctive absorption lines of CO2 at 4.3 and 15 microns. Because the atmosphere is not directly heated by the Sun but indirectly by the surface the earth loses warmth also by conduction with the air and much more effectively by vertical convection of the air to a very great part by evaporation and transpiration. Nearly thirty percent of the solar energy is used for evaporation and distributed as latent energy through the atmosphere,” Thuene wrote. “Summarizing we can say: Earth’s surface gains heat from the Sun, is warmed up and loses heat by infrared radiation. While the input of heat by solar radiation is restricted to the daytime hours, the outgoing terrestrial radiation is a nonstop process during day and night and depends only on the body temperature and the emissivity. Therefore after sunset the earth continuous to radiate and therefore cools off. Because the air is in physical contact with the ground it also cools off, the vertical temperature profile changes, and we get a so called surface inversion which inhibits convection,” Thuene explained.
4. Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor in Ohio and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at its headquarters office near Washington, DC. DeFayette, who earned a masters degree in Physical Chemistry, also worked at the NRC’s Regional Office near Chicago where he was a Director of the Enforcement staff. He also served as a consultant to the Department of Energy. DeFayette wrote a critique of former Vice President Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth, in 2007. “I freely admit I am a skeptic,” DeFayette told EPW on January 15, 2008. “I take umbrage in so-called ‘experts’ using data without checking their sources. My scientific background taught me to question things that do not appear to be right (e.g.-if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is). That is one reason I went to such detail in critiquing Gore's book. I also strongly object to the IPCC and its use of so-called ‘experts,’” DeFayette explained.
In his March 14, 2007 critique of Gore, DeFayette dismissed Gore’s claim that “the survival of our civilization” is at stake. DeFayette wrote, “Nonsense! Civilization may one day cease to exist but it won’t be from global warming caused by CO2. I can think of many more promising scenarios such as disease, nuclear war; volcanic eruptions; ice ages; meteor impacts; solar heating.” DeFayette asserted that Gore’s book was “a political, not scientific, book. There is absolutely no discussion about the world’s climate history, effects of the sun, other planets, precession, eccentricity, etc.” DeFayette disputed Gore’s notion of a “consensus.” “Until a few months ago, scientists believed we had 9 planets, but now we have 8 because Pluto was demoted. In the 1600s scientists believed we lived in an earth-centered universe but Galileo disagreed and proved we lived in a sun-centered universe. At the time of Columbus, the scientific consensus was that the earth was flat but obviously that was wrong. In the late 18th century, ‘Neptunists’ were convinced that all of the rocks of the Earth’s crust had been precipitated from water and Robert Jameson, a British geologist, characterized the supporting evidence as ‘incontrovertible,’” DeFayette wrote. “In each of these cases there was ‘scientific consensus’ that eventually was rejected,” he added.
5. Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author on the Technical Report on Carbon Capture & Storage, was in charge of South Africa’s Chamber of Mines’ Metallurgy Laboratory and was a former professor at University of Witwatersrand where he established a course in environmental chemical engineering. Lloyd has served as President of the South African Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Federation of Societies of Professional Engineers, and the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of Southern Africa. Lloyd, who has authored over 150 refereed publications, currently serves as an honorary research fellow with the Energy Research Centre at the University of Cape Town.
Lloyd rejects man-made climate fears. “I have grave difficulties in finding any but the most circumstantial evidence for any human impact on the climate,” Lloyd wrote to EPW on January 18, 2008. “The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil. I have tried numerous tests for radiative effects, and all have failed. I have tried to develop an isotopic method for identifying stable C12 (from fossil fuels) and merely ended up understanding the difference between the major plant chemistries and their differing ability to use the different isotopes. I have studied the ice core record, in detail, and am concerned that those who claim to have a model of our climate future haven't a clue about the forces driving our climate past,” Lloyd wrote. “I am particularly concerned that the rigor of science seems to have been sacrificed on an altar of fundraising. I am doing a detailed assessment of the IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science. I have found examples of a Summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said,” he concluded.
Cheers,
Marc Morano
---------------
This is the fourth post in a series on the US Senate Minority Report, you can read earlier blog posts here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
You can link to the report entitled 'Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007'
released on December 20, 2007 by the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority) and link to associated media here: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport
Posted by jennifer at 11:28 AM | Comments (273) | TrackBack
An Inconvenient Democracy
Recently I have encountered a couple of prominent believers in a carbon dioxide driven climate catastrophe, who see democracy as an obstacle to reducing emissions.
Mayer Hillman is 76 years old and he is still senior fellow emeritus at the left-leaning Policy Studies Institute ‘think tank.’ For 40 years he has campaigned against road transport. He recently persuaded the editor of Local Transport Today (LTT) to interview him. The result was a revealing 3-page interview in the 6th December 2007 issue entitled, ‘Plan to save the planet, but is anyone willing to pay the price?’ Perhaps it is no surprise that he has latched onto climate change as a means to his end. To be fair though, this is a position he adopted in 1990, long before carbon dioxide emissions impacted on transport policy. Hillman takes the familiar line of scientific consensus about a forthcoming climate catastrophe. He sees carbon rationing, with an allowance of one tonne of CO2 emissions per year, per person, bringing an end to long distance travel by air, rail or car. Hillman goes on to say, “When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life. Rationing has to be imposed on people whether they like it or not.” The interview can be accessed via a simple registration for a week’s free trial of LTT. My edited response was published in the 20th December issue. The unedited version written with much input from John McLean is reproduced in full below:
Mayer Hillman (interview, LTT 6th December) makes Al Gore look like a climate sceptic. Hillman wants to abolish democracy in favour of a carbon dictatorship and introduce carbon rationing/personal carbon trading in order to achieve wealth redistribution. The rationing of carbon emissions is a throwback to the communist era of dictating how an individual's life should be lived. One can almost imagine the carbon police rounding up transgressors and throwing them in a carbon Gulag. His statements that democracy should give way to an authoritarian government are ludicrous. When challenged, he modified that to saying that all political parties should take an identical position on climate so that the voting public have no choice. Unfortunately, this is already happening with the 3 main parties; consensus is a tool of dictatorship rather than democracy. He also wants to end travel by car and air. The economy would be destroyed simply because the UK produces 2% of global man-made carbon dioxide emissions, with transport being responsible for just 20% of the 2%. Drivers already pay fuel tax in excess of £240 per tonne of CO2 emitted. In reference to talking to a future generation Hillman repeats his assertion about the evidence for man-made warming being clear, but he fails to produce any meaningful evidence. I suppose that's no surprise when the IPCC couldn't produce much either (see http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC_evidence.pdf).
Atmospheric Methane levels are stable or falling, and Methane has a ‘half-life’ of only 7 years in the atmosphere. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 50 to 200 years according to DEFRA, and has not been shown to cause catastrophic global warming. The claims about climate scientists saying that 400 or 430 ppmv is a "point of no return" are baseless. We do not have only a few years before the planet reaches its capacity to absorb CO2. If we look at the estimated anthropogenic emissions and the measured increases in CO2 we find that about 50% of emissions are absorbed. The claim that 430ppmv is the "maximum which should be considered safe" to prevent "uncontrollable positive feedback" is unsupported by any evidence. Rises in CO2 have lagged behind temperature rises during the earth’s geological history. For 27 of the past 50 years there has been no correlation between CO2 and global temperatures. Despite atmospheric CO2 levels being many times higher in the past, there has been no ‘runaway warming,’ suggesting that there are strong ‘negative feedbacks’ that operate as a ‘planetary thermostat’ to offset any ‘positive feedbacks’ via increased water vapour. More evidence for negative feedback due to the thinning of heat-trapping cirrus clouds comes from a recent publication by Spencer et al (2007) that was ignored by the media.
A new study just published in December by Douglass et al concludes that, “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming. Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that Greenhouse models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapour, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
The ultimate test of the mythical warming power of CO2 is about to begin as solar activity is expected to show a big fall in the coming decades. The flawed metric of a ‘global average surface temperature,’ which contains a warm bias, reached an El Nino driven peak in 1998. According to Roger Pielke Sr, “a change in heat in Joules that is the proper metric, not the surface temperature, and any accumulation of Joules since 2004 has been quite small, such that global warming has essentially stopped, at least for now. This lack of warming is consistent with the absence of lower tropospheric warming in the atmosphere since about 2003.“
We can also put other alarmist claims into perspective. The recent record low levels of Arctic Sea Ice (since satellite records began in 1979) can’t be explained by temperature change alone. Arctic wind anomolies are also implicated as part of a global pattern of exceptional summer circulation. Also, the media didn’t report the simultaneous record high levels of Antarctic Sea Ice. Wöppelmann et al claim a mean sea level rise of about 1.3mm per year in the last 100 years, and that the rise for 1993 to 2003 is “well within normal fluctuations.” The attempts to link hurricanes and global warming, which resulted in hurricane expert Chris Landsea resigning from the IPCC, have fizzled out following two quiet seasons. Most European glaciers have been in retreat from about 1870 and the majority of global glaciers have little or no monitoring record. Hillman makes very non-specific assertions about these situations. Millions of people being steadily displaced and dying of drought? I am unaware of any people who have been displaced. What drought is he referring to? El Nino and La Nina events cause a shift in rainfall patterns and that might be the entire cause.
Hillman seems very focused on the negative effects of global warming. Who is he to dictate that a certain temperature is acceptable? Contrast the claimed 2000 UK deaths due to the heat wave of 2003, with the yearly excess winter deaths of 25,000 to 45,000.
Hillman trots out the hoary old claim that sceptics are in the pay of oil companies but seems unaware of the implications of that comment. Firstly he is saying that scientists can be bought and their research findings somehow dictated for their "employers". Secondly he conveniently forgets the trough of money that pro-man-made global warming scientists fight over. It is a trough that runs to billions of pounds every year, but admitted competition for the money is tough because the IPCC have dictated the direction of climate research. Climate scientists who wish to ensure future access to that funding pool know that they must produce papers, which are "acceptable" to the man-made global warming fraternity.
Pielke's comments about a conflict of interest are correct (see http://mclean.ch/climate/SPPI-disband_the_IPCC.pdf ) and this apparently makes Hillman slightly subdued prior to showing his acceptance of one of the most blatant situations of a conflict of interest in the IPCC's history - the lead author of a chapter of an IPCC report vigorously promoting his own "hockey stick" temperature graph.
The "hockey stick" has been soundly discredited and is absent from the IPCC 4th Assessment Report - so much for it being evidence. It is surely up to those who propose a hypothesis to produce evidence to support their claims; those who question the hypothesis are not required to prove their case. Hillman, like many others, has tried to replace the "innocent until proven guilty" dogma with a "guilty until proven innocent". It's a common ploy when one's own evidence is pitifully weak. His knowledge of matters such as the hockey stick is sadly dated but his inability to recognise the play of vested interests is even worse.
Hillman also attacks Bjorn Lomborg as being “dangerous” for his belief that Kyoto style policies are futile, yet a recent article published in the journal Nature by Prins and Rayner arrives at the same conclusion. The development of secure energy sources and the adaptation to inevitable