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February 29, 2008
No Impact from the UK's First Energy Saving 'E-Day'
The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable reduction in the country's electricity usage.
E-Day asked people to switch off electrical devices they did not need over a period of 24 hours, with the National Grid monitoring consumption.
BBC website: 'No impact from Energy Saving Day'
The e-day website is here.
Posted by Paul at 08:00 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
New Paper from the Virtual World: Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero Emissions
A new GRL paper by Matthews and Caldeira suggests that, in order to stabilise the computer modelled future climate, CO2 emissions need to be reduced to near-zero.
The abstract of the paper is below:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 35, L04705, doi:10.1029/2007GL032388, 2008
Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions
H. Damon Matthews
Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ken Caldeira
Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, California, USA
Abstract
Current international climate mitigation efforts aim to stabilize levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, human-induced climate warming will continue for many centuries, even after atmospheric CO2 levels are stabilized. In this paper, we assess the CO2 emissions requirements for global temperature stabilization within the next several centuries, using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We show first that a single pulse of carbon released into the atmosphere increases globally averaged surface temperature by an amount that remains approximately constant for several centuries, even in the absence of additional emissions. We then show that to hold climate constant at a given global temperature requires near-zero future carbon emissions. Our results suggest that future anthropogenic emissions would need to be eliminated in order to stabilize global-mean temperatures. As a consequence, any future anthropogenic emissions will commit the climate system to warming that is essentially irreversible on centennial timescales.
So, 'emission impossible' becomes even more difficult. The only way to achieve near-zero emissions is via air capture of CO2.
Posted by Paul at 07:33 PM | Comments (31) | TrackBack
Peer Reviewed US Study Finds More Informed People 'Show Less Concern for Global Warming'
Mass media efforts to raise American public concern about climate change, such as Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the "scientific consensus" media drumbeat, ironically may be having just the opposite effect, according to a new study appearing in the scientific journal Risk Analysis.
The above is taken from here.
Study Excerpt:
Paul Kellstedt, Sammy Zahran and Arnold Vedlitz examined results from an original and representative sample of Americans and found that "more informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming." The researchers also found that "confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming." […] "Perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to... the marketing of movies like "Ice Age" and "An Inconvenient Truth," the effects of information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he or she feels for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it."
The abstract from the paper is below:
Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Toward GlobalWarming and Climate Change in the United States
Paul M. Kellstedt,1∗ Sammy Zahran,2 and Arnold Vedlitz2
Despite the growing scientific consensus about the risks of global warming and climate change,
the mass media frequently portray the subject as one of great scientific controversy and debate.
Andyet previous studies of the mass public’s subjective assessments of the risks of global warming
and climate change have not sufficiently examined public informedness, public confidence
in climate scientists, and the role of personal efficacy in affecting global warming outcomes. By
examining the results of a survey on an original and representative sample of Americans, we
find that these three forces—informedness, confidence in scientists, and personal efficacy—are
related in interesting and unexpected ways, and exert significant influence on risk assessments
of global warming and climate change. In particular, more informed respondents both feel
less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.
We also find that confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high
confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern
for global warming. These results have substantial implications for the interaction between
scientists and the public in general, and for the public discussion of global warming and climate
change in particular.
Risk Analysis, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2008 DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01010.x
Posted by Paul at 06:33 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack
'Experts' Views on the Future of Car and Air Travel in Australia
OVERSEAS trips may become a once-in-lifetime experience and car travel needed to be cut by 80 per cent if we have any hope of avoiding "dangerous" climate change, experts say.
Energy experts from Monash University said the carbon emission standards recommended by the government-hired Professor Ross Garnaut would not be possible if Australia’s love affair with cars and planes continued.
Continue reading Car travel 'cut by 80 per cent'
Posted by Paul at 12:36 AM | Comments (43) | TrackBack
February 28, 2008
First Woman to Earn PhD in Meteorology Speaks Out
Dr Joanne Simpson was the first woman in the world to earn a doctorate in meteorology. She has devoted her entire professional life to studying clouds and violent storms, and at 75, she's still at it.
Formerly of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Present Position Chief Scientist for Meteorology, Earth Sciences Directorate. Simpson’s career also included working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and NASA. Former Colorado State Climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. Called Dr Simpson “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
The following are excerpts from her guest post on Roger Piellke Sr's Climate Science weblog:
Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. [...] The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts. [...] The term “global warming” itself is very vague. Where and what scales of response are measurable? One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use. No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas. [...] But as a scientist I remain skeptical. I decided to keep quiet in this controversy until I had a positive contribution to make. […] Both sides (of climate debate) are now hurling personal epithets at each other, a very bad development in Earth sciences.
Biography of Dr Joanne Simpson.
Posted by Paul at 07:35 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack
February 27, 2008
England Hit by an Earth Tremor
Just before 1.00 am this morning I was woken up by the house shaking. It transpires that an earthquake of 5.3 magnitude took place and the epicentre was near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, the worst quake for nearly 25 years.
The BBC report is here: 'Earthquake hits much of England'
We had a similar experience on 22nd September 2002, just before midnight, lasting for about 15 seconds. On that occasion the epicentre was much closer to home and had a magnitude of 4.8. Apparently, our house lies close to the 'Midland Microcraton along the Malvern Lineament.'
Previous UK quakes and magnitude:
April 2007 - Folkestone, Kent (magnitude 4.3)
December 2006 - Dumfries and Galloway (3.5)
September 2002 - Dudley, West Midlands (5.0)
October 2001 - Melton Mowbray (4.1)
September 2000 - Warwick (4.2)
April 1990 - Bishop's Castle, Shropshire (5.1)
July 1984 - Nefyn, North Wales (5.4)
June 1931 - in North Sea near Great Yarmouth (6.1)
Posted by Paul at 06:12 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
New Paper Reviews the Evidence for a Cosmic Ray-Climate Connection
A new paper is currently in press in the journal Comptes Rendus Geoscience, which reviews the evidence for a connection between Cosmic Rays and Climate.
The invited review authored by Ilya G. Usoskin and Gennady A. Kovaltsov is entitled: 'Cosmic rays and climate of the Earth: possible connection' is available via Ilya Usoskin's personal website for free download (as a corrected proof).
The Abstract states:
Despite much evidence relating climatic changes on Earth to solar variability, a physical mechanism responsible for this is still poorly known. A possible link connecting solar activity and climate variations is related to cosmic rays and the physical-chemical changes they produce in the atmosphere. Here we review experimental evidence and theoretical grounds for this rela tion. The cosmic ray – climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver which effectively operates on different time scales, but its exact mechanism and relative importance still remain open questions.
The paper concludes:
We have reviewed the experimental evidence and theoretical models relating cosmic ray variations to the terrestrial climate changes.
On short time scale of a few days, there exists much evidence that CR changes may affect the process of cyclogenesis via the changing transparency and pressure, particularly in the North Atlantic during cold seasons. Although each individual piece of evidence is barely significant, in aggregate, they suggest that the relation can be real.
A link between low clouds and CR appears statistically significant on the inter-annual time scale since 1984 in limited geographical regions, the largest being North Atlantic + Europe and South Atlantic. We note that many reconstructions of the past climate are based on European data, where the CR-cloud relation is the most pronounced. Extension of this relation to the global scale may be misleading.
A relation between the geomagnetic field changes and climatic variations provides evidence favoring the possible CR influence on climate. A study of regional climate variations in relation to the geomagnetic dipole axis migration over the last millennium is also promising.
There is an indication of the climate changes synchronously with the CR flux on Mega-yr time scales, but this result is not straightforward to interpret. Large uncertainties make it only indicative.
Essential progress has been recently achieved in theoretical modelling of both ionizing effect of CR and physical mechanisms relating CRII to cloud variations, but the link between micro- and macro-physics is still missing. A new experimental evidence, obtained by the SKYexperiment team, confirm that enhanced ionization notably facilitates the production of small ion clusters in realistic atmospheric conditions.
In conclusion, a CR-climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver, as supported by the bulk of statistical studies and existing theoretical models. However, further studies, in particular a clear case study as well as improved model development, are foreseen to improve our understanding of the link between cosmic rays and the climate on Earth.
Posted by Paul at 03:47 AM | Comments (20) | TrackBack
February 26, 2008
Beyond Media Headlines: The Key Issues for the Macquarie Marshes
Media reports yesterday** correctly drew attention to the fact that there are levy banks within the Macquarie Marshes and that they are depriving key wetland areas of water.
But the stories went on to lump upstream legal and planned irrigation development that makes allocations for environmental flows with legal and illegal levies on grazing land within the marshes. Some levies within the marshes are currently blocking designated environmental flow water from reaching the northern nature reserve.
Some of the media reports suggest a need for more studies, but the solution may simply be to bulldoze levies so that environmental flow can get through to the nature reserve.
Other issues within the marshes that require action, rather than more studies include:
1. Preventing the trampling of bird nesting sites by cattle, and
2. Addressing the general issues of overgrazing.
The Macquarie Marshes is a large non-termial wetland in central western New South Wales covering about 200,000 hectares. Most of this area (88 percent) is privately owned and grazed. There are two publicly-owned nature reserves where cattle are excluded and which are Ramsar-listed, meaning they are considered of international importance for migratory bird species.
The most definitive recent publication on the ecology of the Macquarie Marshes is:
The Macquarie Marshes: An Ecological History
by Gillian Hogendyk
IPA Occasional Papers
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=683
You can see pictures of overgrazing at this blog post:
Cattle killing the Macquarie Marshes, 21October 2005
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000949.html
There are pictures of the illegal levies here:
More Water Won't Save the Macquarie Marshes, 28 March 2006
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001282.html
And for more discussion read:
Three Pressing Issues for the Macquarie Marshes, 13 July 2006
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001481.html
-----------------------------
** Yesterday’s stories include:
Report reveals illegal Murray-Darling irrigation. By environment reporter Sarah Clarke
Scientists say the flood plains are being sucked dry and there is no legislation in place to stop further development.
A new report has exposed major flaws in the management of key rivers and flood plains along the Murray Darling Basin. Satellite images of a key wetland in north-western New South Wales reveal more than 2,000 kilometres of earthworks have carved up the waterway. While some of the channels and levees may have been authorised, others are considered illegal and are diverting water into irrigation and farming.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171517.htm
NSW vows crackdown on Murray-Darling earthworks
The New South Wales Government says it will crack down on unauthorised earthworks in the Macquarie Marshes in the state's north-west. A report by the University of NSW found that more than 2,000 kilometres of channels, levees and dams are carving up the Macquarie Marshes and diverting water into irrigation and grazing areas.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171663.htm
Wetlands in a flap after the rains
February 25, 2008
Birds are winning the battle of the marshes, writes Daniel Lewis.
Wading through Monkeygar Swamp, with magpie geese honking in the sky above, even a vicious bite from the odd leech can't wipe the smile off Ray Jones's face.
There's enough water for significant bird breeding in his beloved Macquarie Marshes for the first time since 2000, and the National Parks field officer is on a high after depressingly dry years.
"When you see these geese taking off you can't help but smile," Jones says. A fellow parks employee recently told him: "This is the first time I have seen you smiling for years."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/wetlands-in-a-flap-after-the-rains/2008/02/24/1203788147733.html
'Water theft' threatens Murray-Darling
By DANIEL LEWIS & MARIAN WILKINSON - Australia
Monday, 25 February 2008
A MAZE of levee banks, channels and dams is stealing water from the state's flood plains and threaten to undermine the $10 billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
A year-long study by a leading wetlands expert also says environmental water stolen on the flood plain that is home to the iconic Macquarie Marshes has already caused enormous environmental damage.
The report says inappropriate development has continued for decades…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/river-rescue-under-threat/2008/02/24/1203788147679.html
Flood plain development 'stealing water'
February 25, 2008 - 6:35AM
Levee banks, channels and dams are stealing water from NSW flood plains and threatening to undermine the $10-billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
The authors of a report on flood plain development on the lower Macquarie River say state and federal governments have turned a blind eye to water theft through flood plain harvesting, Fairfax reported on Monday.
http://news.smh.com.au/flood-plain-development-stealing-water/20080225-1ugc.html
'Water theft' threatens Murray-Darling
By DANIEL LEWIS & MARIAN WILKINSON - Australia
Monday, 25 February 2008
A maze of levee banks, channels and dams is stealing water from NSW's flood plains and threaten to undermine the $10 billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
A year-long study by a leading wetlands expert also says environmental water stolen on the flood plain that is home to the iconic Macquarie Marshes has already caused enormous environmental damage.
…. SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=48948
Posted by jennifer at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Plane Stupidity and BoM Bombs
Yesterday (Monday 25th February) four Greenpeace protesters breached security at London's Heathrow airport and climbed on the tail of a Boeing 777 in order to display a banner saying, 'Climate Emergency, No 3rd Runway.'
Prometheus points out in an article entitled, 'A sense of proportion' that last month the Chinese government announced plans to build 97 new airports in the next 12 years. Furthermore, on Saturday China announced plans to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand.
So why can't Heathrow have a much needed 3rd runway and what difference would it make to climate anyway? Not much point asking Greenpeace unless you want a silly answer devoid of facts.
Meanwhile back in Oz, The Australian carries a story today containing the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) explanation for cooler February temperatures across most of Australia straight after record hot temperatures in January. Another one of those 'climate experts' is qouted as saying, "It's just year-to-year variability. Underneath that variability is this insidious slow warming, which is the greenhouse effect, but it's not big enough to stop natural variability, and it's going to take a long time before it is."
Read the entire article entitled, 'Natural changes blow hot and cold.'
Posted by Paul at 10:00 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
Porsche Challenge London CO2 Tax with a Judicial Review
Porsche GB has announced it will seek a judicial review of London Mayor Ken Livingstone's £25 'Congestion' charge for cars emitting 225g/km or more of CO2, on the grounds that it is unfair, disproportionate and will not cut either congestion or emissions. A motor manufacturer has at last found the guts to stand up for itself against a deeply flawed 'environmental' policy.
Porsche have set up a judicial review website here.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone is planning to raise the congestion charge from just £8.00 a day to £25.00 for some vehicles from October, and remove the exemption for residents, meaning that some people will see their daily charge rise from just 80p a day to £25.00 a day.
The new rules will affect several hundred models and many makes of car - 33,000 cars daily in total. This includes many larger family cars such as larger people carriers.
Porsche believes this will be bad for London and intends to take legal action in the form of a Judicial Review to stop this. This is yet another tax on London and the motorist.
It is a disproportionately large, unfair increase.
• The over 200 per cent increase for non-residents is disproportionately large- it is a huge jump in one go that looks more like a political stunt to raise revenue for an inefficient system than considered action.
• The jump for people who actually live in the congestion zone is even higher. People who currently pay just 80p a day will now have to pay £25.00 a day - a massive and unexpected increase of over 3000 percent.
• This increase will hit a large proportion of families that drive people carriers - the sort of people who use one large car, rather than driving a series of smaller one
• It will cost nearly £6,000 per year for those people, whether resident or not, to drive in London every day. This is a massive additional cost that people would not have known they were going to have to face when they bought their car.
• Motorists in Britain already pay very high levels of fuel tax and road tax.
This is yet a further increase which will squeeze them even further.
It won't benefit the environment.
• Despite Livingstone's claims, the increased charge won't make any meaningful difference to the environment. The CO2 saved in a whole year is the equivalent, at most, to just a few hours of emissions from Heathrow Airport.
• It risks just putting more cars on the road as families move from one large car to two or more smaller ones.
• The increased charge will not be dependent on actual usage. A person driving a few hundred yards in one of the affected cars would have to pay £25.00 a day, whilst someone driving a slightly smaller car all day long would get away with paying just £8.00, or just 80p if they are a resident.
It sends out the wrong message about London as a place to do business.
• When London is competing to become the world's leading business centre, it sends out completely the wrong message and will make successful people look at other cities to locate.
• The increase will hit large numbers of ordinary small business people who also use their vehicles for work.
• It comes at a time when people are already concerned about the state of the economy and when business centres should be doing all they can to secure their position.
Porsche has written to the Mayor requesting that he review his plans to increase the congestion charge to £25.00 for some vehicles. If he refuses to think more about the plans, Porsche will formally apply to the High Court for a Judicial Review. Porsche is not prepared to sit by and watch a world class city indiscriminately damaged.
ENDS
Porsche seem to be unaware of just how unfair and disproportionate the new tax is. The Stern report, commissioned by the Government, suggested that £44 per tonne is an appropriate level of taxation for CO2 emissions.
Motorists already pay over £240 per tonne of CO2 emitted - FIVE TIMES the level of the Stern recommendations - in fuel duty.
Ken Livingstone is going to charge those who live within the zone 3500 TIMES the amount of tax that Stern suggests is reasonable if they choose to own a car that creeps over the arbitrary thresholds for emissions.
Insult is added to injury when you realize that buyers of some brand new £40,000+ 4x4s won't have to pay the £25 whilst some VW Beetle owners will.
London Taxis tend to be automatics, which all emit well over 225g/km and they don't have to pay the charge at all!
Notes:
£25 less 80p is £24.20 extra a day for a resident of the central zone for driving a car with "Band G" emissions (over 225 g/km).
The new BMW X5 3.0D will emit 213 g/km (Autocar report), whereas a 2003 VW Beetle Auto produces 228g/km (SMMT website) — 15 g/km more.
Based on 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, the brand new BMW X5 owning resident will pay £208 per year to drive in London. The owner of a £4000 secondhand VW Beetle Auto will have to pay £6500 — over THIRTY times as much.
If they both do 10km a day inside the zone, the VW Beetle owner will have to pay £161,333 for every extra tonne of CO2 he emits over and above the X5 driver. 228-213=15g/km =150g for 10km = .00015 tonnes. £24.20/.00015 equals £161.333.
The Stern report suggested that £44 per tonne was the justifiable level of taxation to cover the alleged "damage" from carbon dioxide. The VW Beetle owner is therefore paying 3666 times this amount for his extra emissions over and above a BMW X5.
Newer versions of the VW Beetle all emit under 225 g/km
LTI TXII Auto taxi — emission rated at 243 g/km on www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk
Posted by Paul at 02:18 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
February 25, 2008
West Antarctic Glaciers Surging Faster - Not Blamed on Global Warming
British explorers in West Antarctica reported glacier movement in the region has picked up by a startling seven percent this season, a development, they said, which could lead to a significant rise in sea level.
The biggest of the glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier, is causing the most concern.
The reason does not seem to be warming in the surrounding air.
One possible culprit could be a deep ocean current that is channelled onto the continental shelf close to the mouth of the glacier. There is not much sea ice to protect it from the warm water, which seems to be undercutting the ice and lubricating its flow
Julian Scott, however, thinks there may be other forces at work as well.
Much higher up the course of the glacier there is evidence of a volcano that erupted through the ice about 2,000 years ago and the whole region could be volcanically active, releasing geothermal heat to melt the base of the ice and help its slide towards the sea.
Read more on the BBC website: 'Antarctic glaciers surge to ocean'
Posted by Paul at 08:58 PM | Comments (68) | TrackBack
Plotting Carbon Dioxide Mostly For Fun: Jan Pompe
Hi Jennifer,
Following on from the discussion at 'Carbon Dioxide versus Temperature' I have done two plots first is the normalises annual mean CO2 growth rate with annual fossil fuel usage the second is normalised CO2 mean growth rate compared with sea surface mean temperature anomalies.
First FYI the provenance of the data in some the actual data is ftp and current that causes safari to crash the links to actual data are in the page.
For fossil fuel usage: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.htm
For mean annual growth rate of CO2: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
For mean annual sea surface temperature: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow
The covariance for this is .63. The motivation for comparing annual growth rate with usage is that if there is a relationship the difference if any will be due to what is actually put into the atmosphere this assumes (quite wrongly of course) that all the other sources and sinks are inactive. So the caveat here is there will be much more actually influencing CO2 concentrations and the correlation could well be meaningless or due to common factors if there is indeed a link. Bottom line is that apart from the general trend (which leads to the relatively high covariance) the growth rate varies much more than growth in usage and the CO2 peaks and troughs don't match and I expect that if the data is detrended the covariance will be much smaller. I don't have time to check this as I have to finish packing and putting stuff out for council clean up.
This has a better covariance of .73 (correlation is the same) but as I suspected we don't see any lag. This is because there is a single data point at each year for each series and any lag less than year is likely to be completely obliterated. Since the CO2 levels have an annual cycle superimposed on the long term trend any such lag will be buried in the "noise". However we do have a physical (chemical) link with partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 and concentration in solution that is also temperature sensitive this needs more work than I have time for at the moment. There is however this http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html . Where he plots concentration versus temperature difference from the vostok ice core, below I plot temperature versus concentration difference which is better I don't know yet and I did it this way because that's the way I had the data loaded I'll look more closely when I get back [from Bellengen].
Looks similar to Jeffry Glasman's maybe it makes no difference but I'll have to convince my self of that on.
Cheers,
Jan Pompe
Posted by jennifer at 07:00 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Carbon Trading Blocked until Farmers get Credits: Steve Truman
"It had been the previous [Australian] coalition governments intention and by default the Rudd governments plan to meet it’s commitments to limit the nation’s Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2008-2012 to the Kyoto Target of an 8% increase above the levels achieved in 1990, by using these accumulated credits [from bans on landclearing] without paying farmers for them.
"The Federal Court in Sydney in December last year agreed that farmers have an arguable case against the Commonwealth over ownership of the 80 million Tonnes of carbon created from land clearing bans...
"Now the court has given Mr Spencer the Green light to file a “notice of motion” which is an injunction to stop the Commonwealth from entering into any carbon trading scheme, until the case is decided.
Read more here: http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/02/24/108-billion-payment-to-farmers-to-meet-kyoto-commitment/
Posted by jennifer at 08:28 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change: I'm off to New York
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change is the first major international conference to focus on issues and questions not answered by advocates of the theory of man-made global warming.
Hundreds of scientists, economists, and public policy experts from around the world will gather on March 2-4, 2008, at the Marriott New York Marquis Hotel on Manhattan’s Time Square, to call attention to widespread dissent in the scientific community to the alleged “consensus” that the modern warming is primarily man-made and is a crisis.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE
I was a delegate at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, March 2-4, 2008, New York City.
You can read some of my blog posts on the conference at the following links:
March 03, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 1, In Review
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002809.html
March 04, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 2, In Review
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002813.html
March 06, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 3, In Review
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002820.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The debate over whether human activity is responsible for some or all of the modern warming, and then what to do if our presence on Earth is indeed affecting the global climate, has enormous consequences for everyone in virtually all parts of the globe. Proposals to drive down human greenhouse gas emissions by raising energy costs or imposing draconian caps could dramatically affect the quality of life of people in developed countries, and, due to globalization, the lives of people in less-developed countries too.
The global warming debate that the public and policymakers usually see is one-sided, dominated by government scientists and government organizations agenda-driven to find data that suggest a human impact on climate and to call for immediate government action, if only to fund their own continued research, but often to achieve political agendas entirely unrelated to the science of climate change. There is another side, but in recent years it has been denied a platform from which to speak.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change promises to be an exciting event and the point of departure for future conferences, publications, and educational campaigns to present both sides of this important topic.
The goals of the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change are:
1. to bring together the world’s leading scientists, economists, and policy experts to explain the often-neglected “other side” of the climate change debate;
2. to sponsor presentations and papers that make genuine contributions to the global debate over climate change;
3. to share the results of the conference with policymakers, civic and business leaders, and the interested public as an antidote to the one-sided and alarmist bias that pervades much of the current public policy debate; and
4. to set the groundwork for future conferences and publications that can turn the debate toward sound science and economics, and away from hype and political manipulation.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change is the first major international conference questioning global warming alarmism, but it will not be the last one. This event is intended to be a catalyst for future meetings, collaboration among scientists, economists, and policy experts, new research, and new publications.
The proceedings will be transcribed, edited, and published as a major contribution to the debate over global warming. Other possible follow-up activities now being discussed include:
1. an event in London in 2009;
2. launch of a new journal devoted to climate change;
3. launch of an association of philanthropists willing to support further research and public education opposing global warming alarmism;
4. support for an International Climate Science Coalition that will act as an alternative voice to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and
5. expanded cooperation among the scores of organizations currently sponsoring research, publications, and events on the dubious claims in support of the theory of man-made catastrophic global warming.
James M. Taylor
Senior Fellow
The Heartland Institute
For more information visit: http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/program.cfm
I will be there.
-----------------
UPDATE
I was a delegate at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, March 2-4, 2008, New York City.
You can read some of my blog posts on the conference at the following links:
February 25, 2008
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change: I'm off to New York
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002787.html
March 03, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 1, In Review
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002809.html
March 04, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 2, In Review
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002813.html
March 06, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 3, In Review
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002820.html
Posted by jennifer at 08:07 AM | Comments (26)
February 24, 2008
Thornton Peak
I have risen early these passed two mornings, to capture the elusive spectacle of the sun’s first rays illuminating the descending moon over Thornton Peak. The greatest uncertainty was finding the mountain free of cloud, but as can be seen in the images, the variables of timing and clarity fell into splendid accord.
At 1374 metres, Thornton Peak is Queensland’s third highest mountain and almost certainly the recipient of Australia’s highest rainfall. Cooper Creek drains part of the eastern flank, traversing a remarkable landscape along its descent to the Coral Sea. This photograph was taken at 6.35 am at about 10 metres ASL and 4 kilometres or so from, or halfway between the mountain summit and the estuary mouth.
The eastern flank of Thornton Peak sustains one of the three greatest concentrations of endemic species in the world. It also harbours one of the greatest concentrations of plants and animals listed under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 as Threatened, Vulnerable and Rare.
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February 23, 2008
Oil on Saturn's Moon Not from Buried Biomass: A Note from Louis Hissink
A recent ABC report detailing the discovery of enormous volumes of hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon, Titan, was accompanied with the comment that this may teach us more about our own planet's oil reserves
One wonders whether the journalists writing this article were actually aware of what they were writing, for the Saturnine moon, 1.2 billion kilometres from the sun, where a warm day is -179 degrees Celsius, awash with oil, would cause some of us to ponder about the origin of hydrocarbons, especially when the prevailing belief is that hydrocarbons are assumed to be derived from buried biomass on earth.
To put Titan into perspective, it has a mass of 0.0075 that of earth, which makes it small indeed but then "has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, scientists report". A satellite smaller than earth with no observed life, has more oil than earth? And it's also a gigantic factory of organic chemicals?
Does this mean that there are carbon-based life-forms on Titan? Surely not, so how on earth are these hydrocarbons being formed. In fact the researchers are concentrating their work on how life evolved from these "organic" compounds, implying that the "oil" produced life, not the other way round.
Experimentally we now know that hydrocarbons are the high pressure polymorphs of the H-C system and according to the second law of thermodynamics impossible to be derived from biomass.
Considering these basic facts one is left with the conclusion that life is an epiphenomenon of oil. And if that is the case then Peak Oil theory is as much a crock as anthropogenic global warming, such theories being nothing more than pseudoscience.
Louis Hissink
Perth
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February 22, 2008
Carbon Dioxide versus Temperature
According to Lance Endersbee:
The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are damped by the oceans.
The oceans are a huge source and sink for volatile gases.
The surface area of the oceans is vast in relation to the depth of the oceans and the atmosphere.
Thus we are dealing with a surface phenomenon.
The above chart is an actual experience curve relating actual CO2 levels with actual global average sea surface temperatures.
It is not a time scale, just the simple relation between two physical parameters.
The line is made up of the succession of actual monthly plotted points.
If we have regard to the possible errors of measurement of CO2 and SST, it is remarkably consistent.
The clear relationship is what would be expected from solubility data.
It is only evident in the temperature data from satellite sources.
The 21 year moving average covers the double solar cycle, including the change in solar polarity.
It also covers El Nino and La Nina events. It also recognizes the longer response time of the oceans.
This chart proves that human emissions of CO2 cannot accumulate in the atmosphere.
They are scavenged as they occur.
We can use the chart to predict the decreased levels of CO2 that will result from cooling.
From Joe D'Aleo:
Below is the monthly Hadley land and ocean and UAH MSU LT temperatures over the last decade with the CO2. Note the temperatures have not warmed, something even IPCC's Pachauri took note of (paraphrasing him - as for the plateauing of temperatures in recent years, we have to see if there are natural factors offsetting greenhouse gases).
Note the correlation with CO2 has vanished the last decade for both data sets.
Updated graph above:
The reasons some years appeared 3 times and some 2 in the originally posted graph was that I inadvertently choose an interval of 5 months instead of 6 months. It is fixed in the new graph.
As for Ian Mott's comments, I started with 1998 which was 10 years ago to get a decadal plot. The last data point was January 2008 which is why 2008 appears at the end.
Aside from the brief bounce coming out of the moderate/strong La Nina of 1999, there has been no increase despite the steady climb of CO2. If we were nearing that 'tipping point' Hansen and Gore love to talk about, surely, a decade is not too short a period to expect some thermal response to CO2 increases.
Joe D'Aleo
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Is Recent Major Hurricane Activity Normal? Comment and Reply in Nature
The debate over whether there is an observable link between global warming and hurricanes rumbles on.
In this week's Nature journal there is a comment and reply arising from Nyberg et al, Nature 447, 698-701 (7 June 2007):
Low Atlantic hurricane activity in the 1970s and 1980s compared to the past 270 years:
Hurricane activity in the North Atlantic Ocean has increased significantly since 1995 (refs 1, 2). This trend has been attributed to both anthropogenically induced climate change(3) and natural variability(1), but the primary cause remains uncertain. Changes in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the past can provide insights into the factors that influence hurricane activity, but reliable observations of hurricane activity in the North Atlantic only cover the past few decades(2). Here we construct a record of the frequency of major Atlantic hurricanes over the past 270 years using proxy records of vertical wind shear and sea surface temperature (the main controls on the formation of major hurricanes in this region1, 3, 4, 5) from corals and a marine sediment core. The record indicates that the average frequency of major hurricanes decreased gradually from the 1760s until the early 1990s, reaching anomalously low values during the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, the phase of enhanced hurricane activity since 1995 is not unusual compared to other periods of high hurricane activity in the record and thus appears to represent a recovery to normal hurricane activity, rather than a direct response to increasing sea surface temperature. Comparison of the record with a reconstruction of vertical wind shear indicates that variability in this parameter primarily controlled the frequency of major hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past 270 years, suggesting that changes in the magnitude of vertical wind shear will have a significant influence on future hurricane activity.
The comment is from Urs Neu: Is recent major hurricane activity normal?
The first paragraph reads:
Arising from: Nyberg et al. Nature 447, 698–701 (2007);
The anomaly of the recent increase in Atlantic major hurricane activity (MHA) is controversial. From a reconstruction of past MHA, Nyberg et al. conclude that the present activity is not unusual by comparison with that of the past 270 years. However, here I estimate the uncertainty of average MHA in the hurricane record before 1945 and show that the reconstruction of Nyberg et al. differs strongly from that record, and probably overestimates past MHA. Owing to this and further reasons, I question whether their reconstruction provides an accurate basis for conclusions about past MHA.
Nyberg et al reply:
Neu suggests that the reconstruction of Atlantic major hurricane activity (MHA) (that is, frequency) in Nyberg et al. overestimates past MHA because it differs significantly from the known observational records of tropical storms and MHA before 1945 and overestimates the influence of vertical windshear |Vz|.
Nyberg et al point out that:
"Neu’s record shows a sudden rise in MHA around 1944, coincident with the start of aircraft reconnaissance, which allowed much better monitoring of tropical cyclones. Also, according to ref. 4, the undercount bias is up to six tropical cyclones per year between 1851 and 1885, and up to four per year between 1886 and 1910. These biases are higher than the ones Neu(1) uses in his record of major hurricane numbers. Furthermore, to quote from ref. 4, ‘‘conclusions from this paper on the number of missed tropical cyclones are likely conservative’’. Moreover, MHA shows a stronger variability, closely correlated to [Vz](ref. 2), than tropical storms and non-major hurricanes in the reliable record(1–3), indicating a varying MHA/tropical storm ratio back in time."
and conclude:
"The proxies used in ref. 2 reflect the region where almost all Atlantic major hurricanes form (see Fig. 2 of ref. 2), and the nonlinear solution(2) allows for varying MHAin response to [Vz] and other influences such as SSTs. Absolute MHA values may change slightly given different model calibrations, but the proxies(2) still indicate a declining trend in MHA until the early 1990s superimposed on decadal and multi-decadal variability and that the conclusions in Nyberg et al(2) remain."
1. Neu, U. Is recent major hurricane activity normal? Nature 451, doi: 10.1038/
nature06576 (2008).
2. Nyberg, J. et al. Low Atlantic hurricane activity in the 1970s and 1980s compared to
the past 270 years. Nature 447, 698–701 (2007).
2. Best track data of the NOAA National Hurricane Center (HURDAT). Æhttp://
www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/Data_Storm.htmlæ (data used as published 11 June
2007). (Hurricane Research Division, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.)
4. Landsea, C. W. Counting Atlantic tropical cyclones back to 1900. Eos 18, 197–208
(2007).
5. Landsea, C. W. et al. in Hurricanes and Typhoons: Past, Present and Future (eds
Murname, R. J. & Liu, K.-B.) 177–221 (Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 2004).
6. Swanson, K. L. Impact of scaling behavior on tropical cyclone intensities. Geophys. Res.
Lett. 34, L18815 (2007).
7. Miller, D. L. et al. Tree-ring isotope records of tropical cyclone activity. Proc. Natl Acad.
Sci. USA 103, 14294–14297 (2006).
8. George, S. E. & Saunders, M. A. North Atlantic oscillation impact on tropical north
Atlantic winter atmospheric variability. Geophys. Res. Lett. 28, 1015–1018 (2001).
9. Aiyyer, A. R. & Thorncroft, T. Climatology of vertical wind shear over the tropical
Atlantic. J. Clim. 19, 2969–2983 (2006).
10. Giannini, A., Cane, M. A. & Kushnir, Y. Interdecadal changes in the ENSO
teleconnection to the Caribbean region and the North Atlantic Oscillation. J. Clim. 14,
2867–2879 (2001).
11. Jury, M., Malmgren, B. A. & Winter, A. Subregional precipitation climate of the
Caribbean and relationships with ENSO and NAO. J. Geophys. Res. 112, D16107
(2007).
12. Hoerling, M. P., Hurrell, J. W. & Xu, T. Tropical origins for recent North Atlantic
climate change. Science 292, 90–92 (2001).
13. Osborn, T. N. et al. Evaluation of the North Atlantic oscillation as simulated by a
coupled climate model. Clim. Dyn. 15, 685–702 (1999).
A subscription to Nature is required in order to view the complete comment, reply and original article.
UPDATE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - February 21, 2008
*** NEWS FROM NOAA ***
NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON, DC
Contact: Dennis Feltgen, NOAA 305-229-4404
Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People, Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says
A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.
“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”
Full paper:
Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005
Roger A. Pielke Jr.1; Joel Gratz2; Christopher W. Landsea3; Douglas Collins4; Mark A. Saunders5; and
Rade Musulin6
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February 21, 2008
Which Countries have a Lifestyle Consistent with an 80 per cent Reduction in Carbon Dioxide Emissions?
Below is a graph of per capita carbon dioxide emissions for various countries around the world. Which countries have an emissions level consistent with an 80 percent reduction from the world's current total emissions?
The answer is is Haiti and Somalia.
From Prometheus: 'Carbon Emissions Success Stories'
Professor Ross Garnaut says that Australia should promote strong global action on climate change and be prepared to match the commitments of other developed nations. Well, 80 per cent, rather than 60, seems to be the preferred rate, so good luck!
Posted by Paul at 09:40 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Alan Moran on the Garnaut Review: Mission Impossible
In his Interim Climate Change Review for the Australian government Professor Ross Garnaut is looking to the world stabilising emission levels at year 2000 levels “soon after 2020”. Following this he sees a need for halving them by 2050 and reducing them to a quarter of 2000 levels by 2100.
He also considers that emissions must be based on some level of equality on a per capita basis. Realistically he recognises that there would need to be a phase to this and that population trends would need to be taken into consideration.
But, notwithstanding the cheer squad who were able to comment on detail about the report as soon as it was released, Garnaut barely scratches the surface in recognising the enormity of the task. Throw away lines like stabilisation at a uniform per capita level mask economic turmoil.
Australia’s emissions per capita are presently 16 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Largely because much of the OECD has (unlike Australia) outsourced its heavy energy intensive industries, the OECD average is 11.5 tonnes. The world average is 4.5 tonnes. Given population growth, that would have to fall to under 4 tonnes by 2030 to get to stabilisation.
In other words, to meet the level that Garnaut sees as necessary, Australia would be emitting only one quarter of its present level of CO2.
That degree of self discipline is possible only by accepting returning the economy to living standards similar to those currently experienced in the developing world. Nobody purposefully emits CO2 (though until a few years ago it was not a concern). The simple fact is that its emission is a by-product of earning income. We know of no other way to enrich ourselves and raise living standards of the poorest countries than to do so using energy and that means carboniferous sources.
As Garnaut acknowledges, easy gains in emission reductions have been made, especially with the dismantling of the command economies of the Soviet bloc and China. Those countries’ CO2 intensities have now stopped falling, in fact are rising. Indeed, China ahs already surpassed the magic 4 tonnes per capita and has only pulled a fifth of its population out of poverty. It is a pipe dream to think that Indonesia and PNG could become vast sinks to offset other countries’ emission levels. Only by foregoing the use of oil, gas and coal is it possible to reduce CO2 emissions.
For Australia this is even more difficult. Our economy is built on low cost coal based energy. Coal is also one of our most important exports. Even if we were to restructure our electricity industry so that it became fundamentally nuclear based (forget the fairies at the bottom of the garden calling for solar) we would still be twice the 4 tonnes per capita level.
And in moving to that position the corollary must be a vast jump in prices. There is no other way of ensuring the constricted use of the energy. Already in Australia with what to the environmental lobby is seen as totally inadequate measures at mitigation, prices of electricity are rising. Anticipating the measures foreshadowed the wholesale price of electricity for delivery in the first half of 2011 in Victoria and NSW is 50 per cent above present levels. And we have seen nothing yet.
Garnaut is surely correct in those of his recommendations that council gradualism and further study. He is also correct that the Kyoto agreement that all signatories including Australia have found it impossible to meet without cheating is only the start. But achieving the goal, even with the loathed nuclear future, is Mission Impossible unless some totally unexpected technical breakthrough comes along.
Alan Moran
Melbourne
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An Arctic Buzzard
This Arctic Buzzard, also known as a Rough-legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus), was found with a broken wing but rehabilited successfully.
It's a bird of prey with a diet consisting mostly of mice, lemmings and young rabbits. The breeding range is very northern, described as holarctic, and migrates southwards in the autumn.
Cheers,
Ann Novek
In Sweden
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Neil is Back in Action
I took this slightly out-of-focus photograph from the verandah of my living room, four days ago and in doing so, formally began to re-establish my collection - hopefully, all is not lost.
By way of perspective, I have long suspected that one of the many benefits of living in tropical wilderness is the luxury of going barefoot. I maintain that removing the immediate protection of footwear and restoring direct contact with terra firma, with all its irregularities and unexpected anomalies, optimises one’s long-term proprioceptive interests. But more than mere exercise, an almost infinite combination of sensory variations underfoot, reverberates throughout one’s greater physiology to enunciate, in the most eloquent tones, relations with the natural environment.
The same can be said for the smörgåsbord of pheromones that infiltrate the sensory openings of Jacobson’s organ and target the limbic centres of the brain. By way of contrast and beneath an urban pair of veritable olfactory-ugg-boots, nature’s stimuli are swamped by a tidal wave of highly concentrated pollutants and chemical deodorants.
In this sense, unfettered exposure to the natural environment provides a myriad of sensations, spanning a gamut of pleasures and repugnancies. Indeed, how is one supposed to appreciate the inherent truth of a pleasurable sensation without regarding the agony and inconvenience of its equally unambiguous counterpart?
On this basis, I take some philosophical counsel from the suffering and inconvenience of my recent computer crash. Beyond the catastrophic loss of my entire data-base, save that which might be recoverable from expensive data restoration technology, my appreciation for computer technology is now balanced against my contempt for its sensational unreliability.
Incidentally, the upkeep of this blog can be assisted by using the donate button on the right-hand side of the homepage. Many thanks to those who have already done so.
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Garnaut Confirms Need to Cut Emissions by 60 Percent
Releasing his Interim Report in Adelaide [Australia] today, Professor Ross Garnaut who was appointed by the new Labor government to provide policy advice on climate change, said that Australia should
promote strong global action on climate change and be prepared to match the commitments of
other developed nations.
The Executive Summary states:
This Interim Report seeks to provide a flavour of early findings from the work of the Review,
to share ideas on work in progress as a basis for interaction with the Australian community,
and to indicate the scope of the work programme through to the completion of the Review.
There are some important areas of the Review’s work that are barely touched upon in the
Interim Report, which will feature prominently in the final reports. Adaptation to climate
change, energy efficiency and the distribution of the costs of climate change across
households and regions are amongst the prominent omissions from this presentation.
Many views put forward in this Interim Report represent genuinely interim judgements. The
Review looks forward to feedback from interested people before formulating
recommendations for the final reports.
Developments in mainstream scientific opinion on the relationship between emissions
accumulations and climate outcomes, and the Review’s own work on future “business as
usual” global emissions, suggest that the world is moving towards high risks of dangerous
climate change more rapidly than has generally been understood. This makes mitigation
more urgent and more costly. At the same time, it makes the probable effects of unmitigated
climate change more costly, for Australia and for the world.
The largest source of increased urgency is the unexpectedly high growth of the world
economy in the early twenty-first century, combined with unexpectedly high energy intensity
of that growth and continuing reliance on high-emissions fossil fuels as sources of energy.
These developments are associated with strong economic growth in the developing world,
first of all in China. The stronger growth has strong momentum and is likely to continue. It is
neither desirable nor remotely feasible to seek to remove environmental pressures through
diminution of the aspirations of the world’s people for higher material standards of living. The
challenge is to end the linkage between economic growth and emissions of greenhouse
gases.
Australia’s interest lies in the world adopting a strong and effective position on climate
change mitigation. This interest is driven by two realities of Australia’s position relative to
other developed countries: our exceptional sensitivity to climate change: and our exceptional
opportunity to do well in a world of effective global mitigation. Australia playing its full part in
international efforts on climate change can have a positive effect on global outcomes. The
direct effects of Australia’s emissions reduction efforts are of secondary importance.
Australia has an important role to play alongside its international partners in establishing a
realistic approach to global mitigation. Australia can contribute to the development of clear
international understandings on the four components of a successful framework for global
mitigation: setting the right global objectives for reduction of the risk of dangerous climate
change; converting this into a goal for stabilisation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at
a specified level; calculating the amount of additional emissions that can be emitted into the
atmosphere over a specified number of years if stabilisation of atmospheric concentrations is
to be achieved at the desired level; and developing principles for allocating a limited global
emissions budget among countries.
Australia should make firm commitments in 2008, to 2020 and 2050 emissions targets that
embody similar adjustment cost to that accepted by other developed countries. A lead has
been provided by the European Union, and there are reasonable prospects that the United
States will become part of the main international framework after the November 2008
elections. Some version of the current State and Federal targets of 60 per cent reduction by
2050, with appropriate interim targets, would meet these requirements.
Download and read the full report here: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/reports-and-papers
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The Milky Way is Twice the Size We Thought it Was
It took just a couple hours and data available on the internet for University of Sydney scientists to discover that the Milky Way is twice as wide as previously thought.
Astrophysicist Professor Bryan Gaensler led a team that has found that our galaxy – a flattened spiral about 100,000 light years across – is 12,000 light years thick, not the 6,000 light years that had been previously thought.
Proving not all science requires big, expensive apparatus, Professor Gaensler and colleagues, Dr Greg Madsen, Dr Shami Chatterjee and PhD student Ann Mao, downloaded data from the internet and analysed it in a spreadsheet.
“We were tossing around ideas about the size of the Galaxy, and thought we had better check the standard numbers that everyone uses. It took us just a few hours to calculate this for ourselves. We thought we had to be wrong, so we checked and rechecked and couldn’t find any mistakes.”
The University of Sydney team’s analysis differs from previous calculations because they were more discerning with their data selection. “We used data from pulsars: stars that flash with a regular pulse,” Professor Gaensler explains. “As light from these pulsars travels to us, it interacts with electrons scattered between the stars (the Warm Ionised Medium, or WIM), which slows the light down.
“In particular, the longer (redder) wavelengths of the pulse slow down more than the shorter (bluer) wavelengths, so by seeing how far the red lags behind the blue we can calculate how much WIM the pulse has travelled through.
“If you know the distance to the pulsar accurately, then you can work out how dense the WIM is and where it stops – in other words where the Galaxy’s edge is.
“Of the thousands of pulsars known in and around our Galaxy, only about 60 have really well known distances. But to measure the thickness of the Milky Way we need to focus only on those that are sitting above or below the main part of the Galaxy; it turns out that pulsars embedded in the main disk of the Milky Way don’t give us useful information.”
Choosing only the pulsars well above or below us cuts the number of measurements by a factor of three, but it is precisely this rejection of data points that makes The University of Sydney’s analysis different from previous work.
“Some colleagues have come up to me and have said ‘That wrecks everything!’” says Professor Gaensler. “And others have said ‘Ah! Now everything fits together!’”
The team’s results were presented in January this year at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.
About Professor Bryan Gaensler:
Professor Gaensler is a graduate of the University of Sydney and former Young Australian of the Year. After working at the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University he was lured back to Australia on prestigious Federation Fellowship. One of the world’s leading astronomers, his research interests include studying the essential role that magnetic fields play in the generation of turbulence and large-scale structures, the production of high-energy cosmic ray particles, and the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
University of Sydney Media Release 20th February 2008
Posted by Paul at 01:30 AM | Comments (9)
February 19, 2008
Are Climate Models Falsifiable?
Philosopher Karl Popper claimed in his book ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery’ that a hypothesis, proposition or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable:
"Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false. Popper's account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsifiability lies at the heart of his philosophy of science."
It seems that whatever happens in the climate system is consistent with climate model predictions. Warmer, colder, less ice, more ice, droughts, floods, more hurricanes, less hurricanes, stronger hurricanes, weaker hurricanes, and so on.
An recent example from the media:
Cold wave in India attributed to global warming
Mumbai: The recent cold wave sweeping across Mumbai and other parts of India could be attributed to global warming, experts said on Tuesday here at an environmental conference.
Would the observed mid-troposphere warming of less than the 2 to 3 times increase over surface warming predicted by climate models represent falsification? Or would a prolonged period of global cooling do the job?
So, what event or observation, or series of events/observations over what timescale are required to falsify the climate modelled hypothesis of CO2 driven climate change or global warming?
This post was inspired by a couple of blog posts over at Prometheus:
The Consistent-With Game: On Climate Models and the Scientific Method
Climate Model Predictions and Adaptation
Serious answers to a serious question, please.
Posted by Paul at 09:52 PM | Comments (90) | TrackBack
Southern Ocean Wind Currents Weakening?
A 15-year research project has revealed that changes in wind patterns are contributing to rising sea temperatures in the Southern Ocean.
ABC News: 'Research shows Southern Ocean wind currents weakening'
CSIRO Media release: 'Antarctic route highlights new ocean-climate links'
Thanks to Luke for alerting me to this story.
Posted by Paul at 08:45 PM | Comments (35) | TrackBack
Review of the DVD Apocalypse? No! The Scientific Reasons Why 'Global Warming' is NOT a Global Crisis
Christopher Monckton’s 2007 presentation to the Cambridge (University) Union
Monckton begins by saying that he is going to present a perspective on climate change science that the audience will have not seen in the media, from politicians or in reports on the science. Like Al Gore, Monckton is not a scientist and he has as much right as Al Gore to talk about climate change. His scientific approach is one of enquiry rather than advocacy. He talks about correct scientific method and quotes T. H. Huxley on scepticism being the improver of knowledge:
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
He then explains that the debate is not about whether we can freely pollute the planet without care for our fellow creatures, or their or our future, or whether we are adding greenhouse gases to atmosphere, because we are, or that adding greenhouse gases doesn’t enhance temperature – because it does.
Monckton turns his attention to climate alarmism about what might happen if the planet becomes a little warmer, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.
Monckton points out that Sir John Houghton, the first IPCC chairman, said, “unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
Al Gore is quoted as saying “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is.”
The science is being exaggerated to make people listen and there is political bias regardless of scientific truth. Hurricane expert Chris Landsea, resigned from the IPCC in 2005, saying, “I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized.”
Monckton shows the error that he found in the supposedly highly scrutinised 2007 IPCC report on the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, where there are four wrong decimal points causing the figures to be in error by a facor of 10. See more here on page 14.
The IPCC is a ‘corporation’ that puts itself first. It therefore has an interest in maintaining its existence and status.
In order to demonstrate IPCC political bias, Monckton shows 3 statements that were in the 1995 IPCC draft report:
1. None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gasses.
2. No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of observed of observed climate change] to anthropogenic causes.
3. Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.
Politicians 'got at it' and took out the above from the final report which stated:
“The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
The Consensus is questioned. Monckton suggests that the BBC has abandoned objectivity and then quotes a literature study of 539 papers published between 2004 and 2007, using the search term’ global climate change,’ where only one paper claimed catastrophe, but offered no evidence.
Hansen’s 1988 temperature predictions are examined. Scenario ‘C’ was based on CO2 in the atmosphere being stabilised, but the actual temperature trend has tracked this despite the non-stabilisation of CO2.
So are today’s temperatures unprecedented? Monckton talks about the Medieval Warm Period. The UN IPCC report of 1990 showed a clear Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and a Little Ice Age (LIA), but the IPCC 2001 report showed the ‘Hockey Stick’ graph 6 times in colour with no MWP. So how was this achieved? Data showing a hockey stick shape from Sheep Mountain in California was given 390 times the weighting of the data Mayberry Slough in Arizona, which had a MWP.
The tree ring data set that included MWP was left out, despite the researchers saying that it was included in the publications of 1998 and 1999. It was actually in a computer file marked ‘censored data.’ Monckton asserted that researchers should make both data and methods available to be checked by other scientists. The US National Academy of Sciences panel described the hockey stick as plausible at best, and the ‘validation skill’ not significantly different from zero.
Monckton then provides some of the evidence for a warm MWP:
Data from 6000 bore holes give a rough idea that there was a warm MWP, Stalagmites from the Austria Alps and Southern Africa, Sediments from Sombre lake, Signy Island in Maritime Antarctica, and Lake Huguangyan, Leechow, South China. Formanifera from the NorthWestern Arabian Sea, Oman. The Sargasso sea, North Island NZ, sediment core from Spanish Pyrenees, pollen profile from Northern Fennoscandia, 3 examples of glacial variations from Swiss Alps. Canada, British Columbia, Azores, two from coastal Peru, the summit of Greenland ice sheet. He then shows a graphic of a timescale sensitive reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature showing the MWP and the LIA. Next he shows a Sediment-based treeline for the species ‘Zelkova Carpinifolia’ demonstrating the Holocene Climate Optimum, the Roman Warm Period, and the MWP. He presents a slide of a 1340AD tree stump in California, well above today’s tree-line.
Monckton points out that warmer is better - most species live in the tropics and hardly any at the poles. He concludes that, because there was a MWP up to 3C warmer than today:
1. Today’s temperatures are not exceptional
2. Nature caused medieval climate warming
3. There was no medieval climate cataclysm
4. Nature may be causing most warming today
5. Climate catastrophe is not looming or likely
He then moves on to talk about natural causes of climate change where his attention inevitably turns to the sun.
First he mentions William Herschel who in 1801 noticed an inverse correlation between the number of sunspots in the 11-year cycle and the price of grain. He then quotes Solanki (2004) who claimed that the past 70 years of solar activity exceptional and similar to 8000 years ago. During the past 11400 years the sun has spent only 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all earlier higher periods of activity were shorter than the current episode.The Sun has been more active than at any time since the last ice age
Monckton then shows a graph for 1880 – 1990 of CO2 and temperature mismatch, pointing out that there is not a good correlation.
A graph of solar cycle length plotted against temperature is a better match – Solanki/Fligg (1999), as is the Central England Temperature (CET) series plotted against sunspot number, for1750 to 2000.
The next slide is from Neff et al (2001), showing Monsoon activity tracking solar activity, followed by a graph of solar activity versus temperature for the Arctic (Soon, 2004).
So, how much influence can the sun have? A slide of the CET, the world’s longest instrumental temperature series, shows a 2.2C rise in just 35 years, 1700 to 1735, suggesting that the sun was the cause of the recovery from the Maunder Minimum. Monckton concedes that this is evidence from one place and one temperature series, but it is evidence nevertheless. He then shows a slide of the rising trend in solar activity from 1715 attributed to NASA’s David Hathaway, followed by conclusions from the International Astronomical Union Symposium in 2004:
1. Solar changes cause most climate change
2. Solar cycles are 11, 80, and 200 years long
3. The Sun caused today’s global warming
4. Today’s warming is normal, not unusual
5. Today’s global warming will end soon
So how do we distinguish natural from anthropogenic warming?
CO2 and temperature is not a good match as we have already seen.
A good match is temperature anomalies for 1979 to 2001 and tropical outgoing long wave radiation. Why? The sun is incident on the tropics – the azimuth angle is 90 degrees – so most heating is in the tropics - the atmospheric transport engine takes heat away from tropics to northern latitudes and to a lesser extent southern latitudes. So, the tropics are the place to look for a ‘hot spot’ of anthropogenic warming. Monckton shows the IPCC 2007 modelled climate forcings for anthropogenic greenhouse gasses, aerosols, ozone, plus solar and volcanic. If they are combined into a single graph, there should be an anthropogenic fingerprint or hot spot in the tropics. However, the fingerprint is absent from the actual troposphere data, or shows only a small signal at best, suggesting a small effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Monckton then discusses some of reasons why computer models are wrong and can’t provide proof of anthropogenic global warming, whereas a mathematical model of the pythagorous theorem can provide absolute proof. Physical sciences with inadequate data cannot provide proof. He quotes Syun-Ichi Akasofu as saying, “No supercomputer, no matter how powerful, is able to prove definitively a simplistic hypothesis that says the greenhouse effect is responsible for warming.”
Next, Monckton discusses the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and the huge range of temperature changes published in the literature for a doubling of CO2. Monckton’s own calculation, based on IPCC 2007, is 1.6C for a doubling of CO2, but the IPCC says 3C. He points out that Svante Arrhenius calculated a 4C to 8C temperature change for a doubling of CO2 in 1896, but in 1906, he had the Stefan-Boltzmann equation available to him and re-calculated everything to give 1.6C.
With the wide range of temperature predictions in mind, Monckton looks at the constraints on CO2, which mean that it is not a major factor in climate:
In 1750, CO2 was 0.03% by volume in the atmosphere; in 2007 it is about 0.04%, a change of +0.01%. The IPCC has reduced CO2 forcing by one-fifth in 12 years (1995 to 2007), yet it has kept climate sensitivity at 3C.
Monckton shows a graph of CO2 v temperature over 600,000 years where CO2 and temperature often go in opposite directions, suggesting CO2 is not the main driver of global temperature. The IPCC admits that CO2 went up to about 6000 ppmv in the Cambrian period and the global average temperature was 22C. He claims CO2 residency time is about 5 to 10 years from various publications. The IPCC claim 50 to 200 years based on “the time required for the atmosphere to adjust to a future equilibrium state if emissions change abruptly,” (IPCC 1990). Monckton considers that the IPCC definition has nothing to do with a genuine residency time.
Monckton’s conclusions on the constraints on CO2 as a cause of global temperature change are:
1. There is very little additional CO2 in the air
2. CO2 has few principle absorption bands
3. At the surface, water vapour dominates CO2
4. CO2’s effect diminishes logarithmically
5. CO2 is not potent, only 1/23 the effect of CH4
6. There’s no tropical mid-troposphere hot spot
7. CO2’s atmospheric residency time is short
8. CO2 correlates very poorly with temperature
He then moves on to some of the ’35 errors’ in Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ which I won’t dwell on as they are explained in detail here.
Monckton then discusses CO2 emissions saying that China is the one to watch; if the UK reduced emissions to zero, then they would be made up by just the increase in Chinese emissions in less than 2 years. Apply that to Europe, US and Canada, and then China plus India would make up the difference in their own emissions growth in 10 to 15 years. Shutting down the western economy will therefore not make any difference.
He presents a graphic of child mortality up to the age of 5 per thousand born, against CO2 emissions demonstrates that the higher the CO2 emissions per capita, the lower the child mortality. Population increase is faster in developing countries – denying developing CO2 emissions will likely increase their populations.
Monckton then attacks what he calls the murderous ‘Precautionary Principle’ as an expedience used by environmentalist lobby to push policies that would otherwise be unacceptable. He looks at two previous global scares: one real, and one bogus where the policies were wrong because of the effect of pressure groups.
The first is HIV, where he says the correct policy would have been to isolate cases in order to prevent spread of the disease, but this was regarded as totally unacceptable.
The result: 25 million died, with 40 million infected worldwide. 0.7% infected in the US, 1% is the epidemic threshold. 7.5% infected south of the Sahara.
The second is Malaria, where the 3 letters ‘DDT’ are absent from IPCC ramblings in its latest report.
Before DDT was ‘banned,’ there were 50,000 deaths per year from Malaria. After the ban, there were 1,000,000 deaths per year. As a result, excess deaths are put at between 30 and 50 million.
On 15th September 2006, the DDT ban was lifted by WHO. Dr Arata Kochi or WHO said, “Quite often in this field politics comes first and science second. We must take a position based on the science and the data.”
Monckton then addresses the claim by Gore and others that there are ‘moral issues’ in the climate change debate. He agrees that there are - exaggeration, alarmism, false claims, false claims of consensus, to allow insertion of false claims or data into reports by politicians, to exalt computer models over data, lack of objectivity, inflicting energy starvation, false denial of past temperatures higher than today’s, claiming extreme weather events are caused by humans, and so on, are all moral issues.
He concludes with reference to the human race, “We must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. We have failed them and failed them before. We must not fail again.”
After the applause dies down, there is time for a number of good questions, which Monckton handles well. In my view the presentation was well prepared, well referenced and eloquently delivered, with emotional pleas over the genuine moral issues. Christopher Monckton comes across as a sincere man who is persuaded by objective science. The cause of climate realists has been enhanced by his involvement in the climate change debate, and this DVD is recommended viewing for those seeking an antidote to the daily dose of climate alarmism in the media, or an alternative scientific perspective.
The DVD is available here.
18th February 2008
Paul Biggs
Posted by Paul at 12:48 AM | Comments (46) | TrackBack
February 18, 2008
This Year Critical for Australian Agriculture, So Greenpeace Sponsors Tour by Anti-GM Campaigner
Greenpeace have been running a campaign against the planting of new crop varieties in Australia since about 2001 as part of their global campaign against genetically modified (GM) food. The Australian campaign has been phenomenally successful with bans to prevent the planting of GM canola introduced in 2004 by most state governments.
The bans are due to be lifted this year in NSW and Victoria, though the South Australian government, despite expectations and the recommendations of its own committee, have decided to keep them in place.
As part of its continuing campaign against GM, and noting that 2008 is a critical year because many of the bans are due to expire, Greenpeace has sponsored a visit to Australia by Canadian canola grower Percy Schmeiser.
Mr Schmeiser is famous for taking on Monsanto and losing his 'David versus Goliath' battle through the Canadian court system but in the process becoming a martyr for the cause – the campaign against the growing of new GM crop varieties.
In June 2000 Mr Schmeiser was found guilty by the Federal Court of Canada of growing GM canola without a licence thereby infringing patent law.
According to popular mythology Mr Schmeiser was a victim of both contamination of his conventional canola crop with unwanted GM pollen and then a victim of a 'reign of terror' by Monsanto who sued him for growing the GM canola which was a consequence of the unwanted contamination.
But the court found that none of the contamination sources suggested by Mr Schmeiser could reasonably explain the extent or quality of his GM canola crop. The Judge ruled that Mr Schmeiser saved seed from a 1997 crop and knowingly reproduced the patented plants by using seed from this crop to plant his entire 1998 crop.
Mr Schmeiser lodged and lost two appeals against the decision.
During the period 2002-2004 Professor Rick Roush compiled the following facts concerning Percy Schmeiser's public comments:
1. Schmeiser was the innocent victim of Monsanto
PERCY SCHEMEISER: "I lost it all to a contamination because a judge ruled in my case it doesn't matter how Monsanto's genetically modified canola gets on my land or any farmers land. You violate the pattern and you infringe on the pattern and your seed becomes Monsanto's property." (Source: Australian ABC 7.30 Report TV Transcript, 4 July 2002, from http://abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s599662.htm)
FACTS: The Canadian court's record indicates that the judge found that Schmeiser deliberately selected for and multiplied GM seed. In 1997 (for example), Mr. Schmeiser sprayed Roundup herbicide over "a good three acres" from which approximately 60% of the plants survived and continued to grow. At harvest, Schmeiser saved surviving canola seed from these plants and then used them in planting his 1998 canola crop ( see especially paragraphs 39, 40, 102, 103, 104, 119, and 125 of the judge's decision at http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/en/2001/2001fct256/2001fct256.html). Schmeiser could have saved seed from any part of his farm, but he took the unusual steps of spraying just part of the crop with Roundup (which should have killed three acres of crop, so Schmeiser must have suspected it would do otherwise) and then saved seed from the survivors, which any reasonable person would expect to have a high frequency of GM Roundup resistance. No one tried to establish how Schmeiser got the seed in the first place, but the judge said that was not relevant to the facts that he was intentionally growing it. A three judge Canadian court rejected Schmeiser’s appeal unanimously on all counts, but in January 2004, he took his case the Canadian Supreme Court claiming that Monsanto’s patent was invalid, nor longer trying to argue that he was an innocent victim.
2. Canada's export markets have been damaged