December 20, 2007

Of Kookaburras and Catbirds

According to our most outspoken local adherent to Al Gore, business owners within the Daintree Cape Tribulation rainforest community need to start taking some responsibility and planning for a very different future to what we are used to.

We cannot anticipate a never-ending tourism market into the foreseeable future – I suspect we have 5-years at the most, and perhaps as a community we need to start planning our futures.

The extremely rapid pace of change in the Arctic (and Greenland and Antarctica) are indicative of what is happening - these areas are described as the 'canaries in the coal mine'. Since 1999 - Cape Tribulation has had an almost doubling of rainfall - far more cloudiness … and this year, for the first time in recorded memory, currawongs have appeared on the lowlands.

It is true that currawongs Strepera graculina made an unexpected appearance this year. Top-knot pigeons were also much more abundant and remained within the area far longer than expected. And Kookaburras Dacelo novaeguineae have been frequenting the cleared areas in the Cooper Valley. However, this atypical representation is more likely due to the abundance of natural resources in the Daintree rainforest, relative to those areas south that were so severely damaged by Cyclone Larry in March of last year.

As I photographed this individual, a spotted catbird Ailuroedus melanotis did its utmost to evict the intruder, calling incessantly and finally dropping vegetation from above. The catbird has two nestlings nearby and I wondered if the Kookaburra’s notorious nest-thievery was familiar to the catbird.

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November 30, 2007

Flying Foxes in the Heat of Debate

Flying foxes to wilt with climate change, by ABC Science Online's Stephen Pincock, contends that new research shows some of Australia's flying foxes face a grave threat from extreme temperatures expected to become more frequent with climate change.

Dr Nicola Markus, an Australian expert on their ecology and co-author of this new research, says, "It bodes extremely badly for the black flying foxes."

In early 2002, she and an international team of researchers witnessed the deaths of more than 1,300 grey-headed and black flying foxes at Dallis Park in northern New South Wales (most of them females and their dependent young).

"On that day, what we saw was, very simply, that the flying foxes died of heat stress," Dr Markus said. The temperatures, which exceeded 42 degrees Celsius, killed more than 1,300 of the animals. State-wide, more than 3,500 flying foxes fell to the soaring temperatures in that single heatwave.

Flying foxes are keystone species for forest environments. They have also been central to a taxonomic debate, which asks, are they really primates?

In 1986, Dr. John D. Pettigrew published his findings that all flying fox species (examined) shared the half-dozen brain pathways that were otherwise unique to primates. Under a microscope, their brain affinities with lemurs were difficult to tell apart.

Megabats and microbats had been historically grouped together because of the obvious similarities of their handwings. However, Dr. Pettigrew observed that the differences between to two groups included such things as diet, dentition, chromosomes, world geographic distribution, sperm, biochemistry, parasitology and numerous features of behavior. He also hypothesised that the two groups evolved flight separately, with the mega-chiroptera in the Tertiary era and the micro-chiroptera, much earlier, in the Cretaceous.

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July 22, 2007

Radiative forcing due to land use change in southwest Australia

Having seen Ian Mott's note on land change, I though I would post this paper suggesting that climate models and therefore the IPCC underestimate the effects of land use change on climate:

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D09117, doi:10.1029/2006JD007505, 2007

Observational estimates of radiative forcing due to land use change in southwest Australia

Abstract

Radiative forcing associated with land use change is largely derived from global circulation models (GCM), and the accuracy of these estimates depends on the robustness of the vegetation characterization used in the GCMs. In this study, we use observations from the Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument on board the Terra satellite to report top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcing values associated with clearing of native vegetation for agricultural purposes in southwest Australia. Over agricultural areas, observations show consistently higher shortwave fluxes at the TOA compared to native vegetation, especially during the time period between harvest and planting. Estimates using CERES observations show that over a specific area originally covered by native vegetation, replacement of half the area by croplands results in a diurnally averaged shortwave radiative forcing of approximately −7 W m−2. GCM-derived estimates for areas with 30% or more croplands range from −1 to −2 W m−2 compared to observational estimate of −4.2 W m−2, thus significantly underestimating radiative forcing due to land use change by a factor of 2 or more. Two potential reasons for this underestimation are incorrect specification of the multiyear land use change scenario and the inaccurate prescription of seasonal cycles of crops in GCMs.

Received 12 May 2006; accepted 22 November 2006; published 15 May 2007.

Keywords: Australia; land use change; radiative forcing.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006JD007505.shtml

Posted by Paul at 06:27 AM | Comments (133) | TrackBack

The Little Ice Age in Australia

I have previously posted comments about this paper, published in the Journal of Quaternary Science that provides evidence for the generally cooler period known as the Little Ice Age being a global phenomenon rather than being limited to the Northern Hemisphere:

Five centuries of climate change in Australia: the view from underground

Henry N. Pollack 1 *, Shaopeng Huang 1, Jason E. Smerdon 2
1Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
2Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York, USA

Published Online: 27 Sep 2006

Keywords
palaeoclimate • borehole temperatures • Australia

Summary and conclusions

We have analysed 57 borehole temperature profiles from across Australia to reconstruct a ground surface temperature history for the past five centuries. The five-hundred-year reconstruction is characterised by a temperature increase of approximately 0.5 K, with most of the warming occurring in the 19th and 20th centuries. The 17th century was the coolest interval of the five-century reconstruction, perhaps representing a muted expression of the Little Ice Age widely observed in the Northern Hemisphere. Because most of the boreholes were logged prior to 1976, the observed subsurface temperatures do not show the strong warming experienced by Australia in the last two decades of the 20th century. Comparison of the geothermal reconstruction to the high-quality Australian annual SAT (Surface Air Temperature) time series in their period of overlap shows excellent agreement. The full geothermal reconstruction also shows excellent agreement with the low-frequency component of dendroclimatic reconstructions from Tasmania and NewZealand. The warming of Australia over the past five centuries has been about two-thirds that experienced by southern Africa, and only about half that experienced by the continents of the Northern Hemisphere in the same time interval.

This paper provides evidence for different regional responses to global climate change and illustrates the fact that the world has warmed since the end of the LIA, with half of the warming occurring in the 20th century.

Posted by Paul at 12:25 AM | Comments (32) | TrackBack

July 20, 2007

18,000 year temperature reconstruction for New Zealand

I came accross this paper in the latest edition of the Journal of Quaternary Science entitled: 'A pre-deforestation pollen-climate calibration model for New Zealand and quantitative temperature reconstructions for the
past 18 000 years BP.' JQS (2007) 22(5) 535–547

JANET M. WILMSHURST,1* MATT S. McGLONE,1 JOHN R. LEATHWICK2 and REWI M. NEWNHAM3
1 Landcare Research, Lincoln, Canterbury, New Zealand
2 National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Hamilton, New Zealand
3 University of Plymouth, School of Geography, Plymouth, Devon, UK

In case any readers don't know, the current 12,000 year old interglacial period that we are fortunate to live in is known as the 'Holocene,' SST refers to 'Sea Surface Temperature, ' MAT is 'Mean Annual Temperature,' and BP is 'Before Present.'

The Abstract says:

Quantification of modern pollen rain–vegetation–climate relationships in New Zealand has been complicated by human destruction of at least 75% of the original forest cover since ca. 750 years BP, causing contemporary pollen rain over large areas to bear little resemblance to the pre-human vegetation. We use a pre-deforestation pollen database to circumvent this complication. The relationships between the pre-deforestation pollen assemblages and six climatic variables were explored using principal components analysis and constrained regressions (redundancy analyses). Quantitative estimates of the most significant climate variable (mean annual temperature) were made at seven lowland to montane fossil pollen sites from throughout New Zealand using the modern analogue technique and a transfer function. These showed an initial increase in mean annual temperature after 18 000 cal. yr BP, a cooling at the time of the Antarctic Cold Reversal (centred on 13 500 cal. yr BP) and continuation of warming from ca. 12 000 cal. yr BP across the Younger Dryas chronozone, reaching a Holocene thermal optimum that may have been between 1.5 and 3.08C warmer than present and lasted from 9000 to 7000 cal. yr BP depending on the site. Cooling to present-day temperatures was well advanced by 4000–3000 cal. yr BP.

The paper concludes:

It is clear that the early Holocene was an unusually warm period with the pollen results, marine core assemblage, and isotopic SST estimates and other proxy biological evidence pointing to several millennia of MATs between 1.5 and 3.08C above those of the early 20th century. Given that there is considerable alarm about similar increases in MAT by the end of the current century, these results suggest that the early Holocene could profitably be used as an analogue to explore the consequences for biological change.

Posted by Paul at 05:33 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Truth or Swindle?

Apologies to those of an alarmist disposition, but I have an opinion piece published here on TGGWS, copied below. It is based on what I have written and posted here and elsewhere:

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) and Martin Durkin’s The Great Global Warming Swindle (TGGWS) are two documentaries presenting two very different perspectives on the current level of the scientific understanding of the Earth’s complex climate system.

AIT presents the science as being settled and computer models as being reliable. Everything bad in the world is caused by man-made CO2, from more intense hurricanes, tornados, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, floods, droughts, heat waves, and disease, to drowning polar bears.

The main thrust of TGGWS is that the science isn’t settled and there is an alternative explanation. The “enhanced greenhouse effect” isn't behaving as climate models suggest that it should, and climate change is being used as a vehicle for an anti-human, anti-capitalist, anti-mobility agenda by groups masquerading as “green.” Others are making a living by perpetuating the global warming industry, while bandwagon politicians seek to raise “green” taxes, control enterprise, mobility, and lifestyles via energy policy.

Scientists who subscribe to the claimed “consensus” view have described AIT as having the science “about right”. TGGWS, on the other hand, has been subjected to intense scrutiny and attacks from the day it was first shown on the UK’s Channel 4 TV.

Let’s examine some of the contentious points starting with Al Gore’s 600,000-year graph of temperature and CO2 derived from ice cores. Gore fails to mention that the graph shows CO2 lagging temperature by hundreds of years, rather than CO2 driving temperature, a point that was made in TGGWS. The ice core data tells us little or nothing about the sensitivity of climate to man-made CO2.

Israeli Physicist Nir Shaviv, who appeared in TGGWS, has published his empirical calculation of climate sensitivity of a maximum of 1C to 1.5C for the iconic doubling of CO2 to 560 parts per million. Contrast this with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) computer modelled scenarios of 1.1C to 6.4C.

The infamous “hockey stick” graph of temperatures for the past 1,000 years is another point of disagreement between Gore and Durkin. It consists of a horizontal “handle” of reconstructed “proxy” data showing a stable temperature, onto which modern day instrumental measurements have been grafted to show a rapid 20th century rise in global temperatures.

The use of these two different types of data alone is ample cause for concern, yet this graph was the “poster child” of the IPPC 2001 report and replaced the one the IPCC used in their 1995 report, which clearly showed a Medieval Warm Period (MWP), followed by a cooler period known as the Little Ice Age, a version of which was used to illustrate the point in TGGWS.

Research published by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (2003, 2005) showed that the hockey stick shape was the result of seriously flawed methodology. The 2006 US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel upheld the major criticisms made by McIntyre and McKitrick including the advice that strip-bark bristlecone pines should not be used in climate reconstructions.

However, the controversy over the global extent of the MWP continues, given that there are regional differences in the way the world warms or cools. The temperature rise in Australia over the past 500 years is only about half of that experienced by the continents in the Northern Hemisphere during the same period.

Both the CO2 and solar theories seem to have suffered from a correlation breakdown or “divergence”. There was a period of global cooling from the 1940’s to the 1970’s despite increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. Solar activity also fell during this period suggesting a solar link.

Claims by CO2 driven warming proponents that the cooling was caused by sulphate aerosol pollution reflecting sunlight don’t really stand up to scrutiny, given the fact that emissions from developing countries have increased markedly since the late 1980’s.

The Svensmark/Friis-Christensen graph used in TGGWS showing a correlation between the length of the 11-year solar cycle (as a measure of solar activity) and temperature has been criticised because it stops in 1980. Butler and Johnston, using data from Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, published similar findings in 1996.

After 1985 solar activity started to decrease yet global temperatures continued to rise. Nir Shaviv is a proponent of a possible solar explanation for this that requires the suggested link between cosmic ray flux and clouds to be real. Svenmark’s successful pilot experiment, published in 2006 provides experimental support for such a link. A much larger experiment at CERN in Switzerland should be completed by 2010.

It is important to note that the IPCC rate the “level of scientific understanding” of solar irradiance as “low”, and solar eruptivity and cosmic ray flux as “very low”.

Professor Carl Wunsch was far from complimentary about climate models when he appeared in the original version of TGGWS. He did not appear in the ABC version because he claimed his contributions had been shown out of context and misrepresented his views.

The release of the original emails to Professor Wunsch from TGGWS makers Wag TV revealed that he was well aware of the documentary’s perspective:

… I wanted to email you to outline the approach we will be taking with our film to clarify our position. We are making a feature length documentary about global warming for Channel Four in the UK. The aim of the film is to examine critically the notion that recent global warming is primarily caused by industrial emissions of CO2. It explores the scientific evidence, which jars with this hypothesis and explores alternative theories such as solar induced climate change. Given the seemingly inconclusive nature of the evidence, it examines the background to the apparent consensus on this issue, and highlights the dangers involved, especially to developing nations, of policies aimed at limiting industrial growth …

Assuming Prof Carl Wunsch didn't dupe himself into writing it, we have his compelling view of the Gulf Stream scare from Nature, April 8, 2004:

Sir -Your News story “Gulf Stream probed for early warnings of system failure” ("Nature" 427, 769 (2004)) discusses what the climate in the south of England would be like “without the Gulf Stream”. Sadly, this phrase has been seen far too often, usually in newspapers concerned with the unlikely possibility of a new ice age in Britain triggered by the loss of the Gulf Stream. European readers should be reassured that the Gulf Stream's existence is a consequence of the large-scale wind system over the North Atlantic Ocean, and of the nature of fluid motion on a rotating planet.

The only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to turn off the wind system, or to stop the Earth's rotation, or both. Real questions exist about conceivable changes in the ocean circulation and its climate consequences. However, such discussions are not helped by hyperbole and alarmism. The occurrence of a climate state without the Gulf Stream anytime soon - within tens of millions of years - has a probability of little more than zero.

TGGWS malaria expert Paul Reiter resigned from the IPCC over alarmist claims about malaria and global warming. He has also poured scorn on Gore's malaria claims:

I am a specialist in diseases transmitted by mosquitoes. So let's talk malaria. I wondered how many had taken anti-malaria tablets because they had seen Al Gore's film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, which claims that Nairobi was established in a healthy place “above the mosquito line” but is now infested with mosquitoes - naturally, because of global warming. Gore's claim is deceitful on four counts. Nairobi was dangerously infested when it was founded; it was founded for a railway, not for health reasons; it is now fairly clear of malaria; and it has not become warmer. Pseudoscience will damage your health and your wealth just as surely as malaria.

Gore claimed that 35,000 people died as a result of the 2003 European summer heat wave, due to man-made global warming. Equally pertinent but not mentioned by Gore is that there are about 100,000 excess winter deaths in Europe each year, and 25,000 to 45,000 in the UK. Contrast this with the estimated 2,000 UK deaths during the 2003 heat wave. Recent peer reviewed science by Chase et al (2006), and Fischer et al (2007) casts doubt on the claim that European heat waves are due to man-made CO2.

Gore’s inclusion of hurricane Katrina suggests that increased hurricane intensity is linked to global warming, but this is not backed by the World Meteorological Organisation “consensus statement”, or a raft of recent papers. Hurricane expert Chris Landsea resigned from the IPCC in 2005 saying, “I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound”.

John Chrsity of The University of Alabama research group provides support for the claim made in the TGGWS that the planet's surface warming is greater than the warming in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), which contradicts climate model predictions for enhanced greenhouse warming. Previous unfounded criticisms of the Christy et al data have centred round an error correction of 0.035C, which ignored the fact that this was within the quoted margin of error in the original paper of 0.05C. Their latest data published in 2007 confirms the discrepancy between climate models and observations.

Land use change expert Roger Pielke Sr, of the University of Colorado, resigned from the IPCC in 1995 due to the narrow focus on CO2, but he didn’t appear in TGGWS. In 2005, he also resigned form the US Climate Change Science Programme (CCSP) Committee “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere-Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences” stating:

I have given up seeking to promote a balanced presentation of the issue of assessing recent spatial and temporal surface and tropospheric temperature trends. This entire exercise has been very disappointing, and, unfortunately is a direct result of having the same people write the assessment report as have completed the studies.

The broad conclusion is that the multi-decadal global climate models are unable to accurately simulate the linear trends of surface and tropospheric temperatures for the 1979-1999 time period, on the regional and tropical zonally-averaged spatial scale. Their ability to skilfully simulate the global averages surface and tropospheric temperature trend on this time scale is, at best, inconclusive. This has major implications for the impacts community.

Studies such as the US National Assessment and Chapters and the IPCC which use regional results from the multi-decadal climate models are constructed on models which have been falsified in their ability to accurately simulate even the linear trend of the tropical zonally averaged surface and tropospheric temperature trends over the last several decades. Since almost all impact studies require regional and smaller scale resolution, the current generation of multi-decadal global climate prediction models is inappropriate to use for impact prediction for the coming decades.

In conclusion, Gore’s AIT goes way beyond any consensus and doesn’t do justice to the many scientific uncertainties. Durkin’s TGGWS has evolved since the first showing in response to some criticisms, and could have made some of the contentious points clearer. However, the debate that some so badly want closed down is alive and well, albeit increasingly vitriolic. There is, however, a much bigger fish to fry than either AIT or TGGWS - namely the IPCC itself. I look forward to the same intense scrutiny being applied to the IPCC’s climate science monopoly.

Posted by Paul at 05:13 PM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

July 16, 2007

White paint, asphalt, concrete, BBQ’s and air con units, plus some cherry picking.

Well, possibly a more interesting title than ‘Is the near surface temperature record robust?’ All of the above, plus more besides, can affect the readings at temperature stations. Anthony Watts has been collecting photographs of the USHCN climate stations. He is now up to ‘How not to measure temperature, part 22.’ He has two websites Watts up with that? and surfacestations.org
Obviously, in order for surface temperature measurements to accurately reflect temperature trends, all non-climatic influences must be removed. Initially, Anthony examined the fact that Stevenson screens that house the temperature sensor used to be painted with whitewash, but have been painted with latex paint since 1979. He has purchased 3 Stevenson screens, one has bare wood, one is painted with whitewash, and the other with latex. The initial results were posted here. The latest results will be available in about a week’s time.

Anthony’s work has also caused a ‘blog war’ between Hockey Stick/Big Man-Made Warming defenders Real Climate and Roger Pielke Sr’s Climate Science blog.

Moving on to the peer reviewed science cited by IPCC WG1 in order to support the robustness of near-surface air temperature trends, Roger Pielke Sr claims on his blog, “The IPCC WG1 Chapter 3 Report clearly cherrypicked information on the robustness of the land near-surface air temperature to bolster their advocacy of a particular perspective on the role of humans within the climate system. As a result, policymakers and the public have been given a false (or at best an incomplete) assessment of the multi-decadal global average near-surface air temperature trends.“ Pielke Sr has listed the papers cited by the IPCC, and those that weren’t. Additional evidence has been posted here.

You might agree that life is never dull in climate science. The good news is that Australia's Reference Climate Station Network seems to be a model for how temperature should be measured.

I now have a list of UK stations used by Phil Jones et al. Maybe I’ll try and obtain photographs of each site. There again, maybe not!

Regards,

Paul Biggs

Posted by Paul at 06:32 AM | Comments (84) | TrackBack

October 13, 2006

Build Dykes To Beat Global Warming: A Note from Paul Williams

To what extent can technology protect communities from climate extremes through early warning and disaster response strategies and by having appropriate building plans, codes and drainage infrastructure? Here's a comment from Paul Williams who's been thinking about the situation in South Australia:

"Scientists such as Tim Flannery, the CSIRO, our Premier Mr Rann and the editorial staff of the Advertiser all tell us that climate change is coming, and it's all due to human emission of greenhouse gases.

Droughts will increase and sea levels will rise. Apparently the science is settled and the evidence is incontrovertible.

The response to this coming disaster is to call for lifestyle changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The problem is that South Australia emits only 0.15% of global greenhouse emissions, and greenhouse emissions by other countries (and other Australian States), still affects the atmosphere and climate of South Australia. In other words, South Australian greenhouse emissions have no effect on global or South Australian climate, and reduction of greenhouse emissions by South Australians will not reduce the degree of climate change we must undergo.

Assuming Mr Rann is sincere in his desire to protect South Australia from the effects of climate change, it seems the only actions which will be of any practical use, as opposed to merely symbolic, will be engineering solutions.

For instance, if sea level is definitely going to rise by up to seven metres by 2100, why not begin construction of dykes to protect coastal infrastructure? After all, Holland has been doing that for hundreds of years.

Similarly, why not run computer simulations to study the effects of flooding the Lake Eyre basin with sea water? Computer models are apparently sophisticated enough to predict Australia's rainfall and sea level changes for the next 100 years, so they should be adequate to assess any benefit from an inland sea.

If the science really is settled, then Mr Rann needs to take effective action, not simply enact legislation that plays well with the inner city environmentalists."

It's not just in South Australia that politicians are calling for emission reductions rather than proposing some more practical adaptive solutions.

Just yesterday Queensland Sunshine Coast independent MP, Peter Wellington, proposed a notice of motion calling on the Queensland Parliament to acknowledge climate change is a threat and take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Come-on! There must be something more practical that Mr Wellington can propose for coastal Queensland assuming "the science is really settled" and we face catastrophic climate change and dramatic sea-level rise?

Posted by jennifer at 08:07 AM | Comments (48)

October 11, 2006

Is there a Cosmic Ray - Global Warming Link?

I understand that the global warming models produced by the IPCC don’t take into account the possible influence of cosmic rays on climate?

New research out of the Danish National Space Centre provides evidence to support the theory that cosmic rays can influence the Earth’s climate through their effect on cloud formation.

It has apparently been hypothesized for a while, but now a causal mechanism has been identified. Apparently ions and free electrons from cosmic rays from exploding stars act as catalysts accelerating the formation of ultra-small clusters of sulpuric acid and water molecules which are the building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei on which water vapour condenses to make clouds.

According to the Danish researchers, during the 20th Century, the Sun’s magnetic field which shields the earth from cosmic rays more than doubled, thereby reducing the average influx of cosmic rays and perhaps impacting on cloud cover.

Did the sun's magnetic field really double and how does it shield the earth from cosmic rays?

Anyway, low-altitude clouds have an overall cooling effect on the Earth and the Danes hypothesis that with less cloud the earth has been warming?

Is there evidence that there has been less cloud cover?

So with the new findings on the Sun, the ozone hole, particulate pollution and now cosmic rays, will the IPCC models need to be overhauled?

Also what about the impact of the volcano erupting in New Guinea?

Posted by jennifer at 02:29 PM | Comments (69)

October 09, 2006

Pulp Mill To Reduce Rainfall?

I have been sent bits of information about particulate pollution and how this can reduce rainfall downwind of industrial areas and cities. I made some comment on this issue when I was in Hong Kong and somewhat surprised by the extent of the air pollution.*

Aaron Gingis has been a key proponent of the thesis. He has variously suggested that the reason we have a drought in south east Queensland is because of particulate pollution and that the solution to the drought in the Murray Darling Basin is cloud seeding.

I have often pondered Gingis' claims while studying this map:

It suggests record low rainfall in our most heavily populated catchments. It was part of a blog post from David Jones in which he commented that Perth, Canberra and Melbourne catchments have all experience their lowest (or nearly so) rainfall on record. David didn't mention pollution as a cause, and I have been meaning to ask him why.

Anyway, while some doomsayers have been more inclined to blame low rainfall on global warming, the Tasmanian Greens have commissioned Mr Gingis to prepare a report which has concluded that there will be a massive drop in rainfall in Tasmania's north-east if a proposed pulp mill goes ahead.

According to ABC Online:

Mr Gingis said the ultra fine particles emitted by the mill will change the density of clouds and reduce rainfall in the north-east by up to 80 per cent...

"They make clouds actually constipated, in other words the clouds simply changing their metrophysics and not precipitating or precipitating much less."

Mr Gingis has lobbied governments, irrigators, bloggers and others on the issue of pollution and reduced rainfall suggesting we can't do much about the pollution and that the solution is cloud seeding.

It is interesting that ABC Online has just now reported the phenomenon and in the context of a campaign against a pulp mill proposed by timber company Gunns Ltd and there is no mention of cloud seeding as the solution.

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* See http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001631.html :

I was recently sent the following very interesting papers on global dimming and its potential impact on rainfall in Australia: Rosenfeld, D. (2000) Suppression of rain and snow by urban and industrial air pollution. Science, Vol 287, pp 1793-1796. Rosenfeld et. al. (2005) Potential impacts of air pollution aerosols on precipitation in Australia. Clean Air and Environmental Quality, Vol 40, No. 2, pp 43-49. Rosenfeld, D. (2006) Aerosols, Clouds and Climate. Science, Vol 312, pp. 1323 – 1324. ABC TV Four Corners did a feature on global dimming in March 2005, the transcript and reference documents can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1328747.htm

Posted by jennifer at 09:24 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

October 08, 2006

The Montreal Protocol Hasn’t Stopped Ozone Depletion

There was a crash in the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) following the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987.

By 1999 atmpospheric levels of manmade ozone destroying chemicals had leveled off and since 2003 there has been a 7 percent drop in the amount of chlorine and bromine in the lower stratosphere (10-25 km). This is apparently where most ozone loss occurs.

Given its original objectives, the Montreal Protocol has been a huge success and reduced concentrations of ozone-depleting gases.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been predicting for some time that the reduction in concentrations of ozone-depleting gases will result in a recovery in the ozone layer and also the Antarctic ozone hole.

So what happened this year?

Over the last few weeks we have heard report after report that the ozone hole over the Antarctic has expanded to a near-record size despite the successful global ban on chlorofluorocarbons.

An incredible 40 million tonnes of ozone had been lost over Antarctica this year, exceeding the record 39 million tonne loss in 2000 with the depth of the ozone hole now rivaling the record low ozone values of 1998.

Discussion, including at this blog, has focused not on chlorofluorcarbons as the cause of the now growing ozone hole, but on atmospheric temperatures and other phenomena.

It is interesting to reflect on what some skeptics were writing 10 years ago.

At that time S. Fred Singer was sounding something like a global warming skeptic with his piece entitled 'Ozone politics With a Nobel imprimatur' in the Washington Post.

He wrote: "Further research will likely prove the CFC-ozone issue to have been a minor environmental problem. In the meantime, hasty policies to ban CFC production by the end of 1995, though a financial windfall for chemical companies and appliance manufacturers, will impose substantial economic costs -- up to $100 billion -- on U.S. consumers and make life worse for the poorest everywhere -- especially in developing nations."

There is even mention of hurricanes and Al Gore in the article.

Anyway, it is interesting to ponder why, given the success of the Montreal Protocol, there has not been a reduction in the hole over the Antarctic?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Bob Foster for sending me the S. Fred Singer paper.

A note to commentators, I am interested in better understanding this issue and I'm interested in your opinion. But comments that don’t add new information and/or that are disrespectful may be edited and /or deleted.

Posted by jennifer at 04:56 PM | Comments (50) | TrackBack

October 06, 2006

R U Flying: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 4)

Aviation generates about 5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions but their warming effect is up to four times greater at high altitudes according to Jonathan Leake writing last weekend in The Sunday Times.

The article entitle, 'A green snag they emitted to mention...' suggests that environmental leaders are amongst the highest greenhouse gas emitters in the world because they like flying to exotic locations for their holidays and conferences. According to the article:

"Among those with the highest air miles is Bob Napier, chief executive of WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, one of the best-known environment groups. In the past 12 months he has visited Spitsbergen, Borneo, Washington, Geneva, and Beijing on business trips and taken a holiday in the Falklands, generating more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide. A typical British household creates about six tons of CO2 a year."

And did anyone notice how many planes Al Gore got on and off, and how many places he boasted he had visited to give that lecture, in that movie 'An Inconvenient Truth'. I lost count.

Anyway, someone sent me this link to a piece published by USA Today entitled 'Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe'.

It doesn't add up the plane trips, but it does suggest that Mr Gore is another one of those environmental leader who doesn't practice what he preaches.

For photographs visit www.whalephoto.com.

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I've a series running on that movie, the last post, part 3 can be read by clicking here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001641.html .

Posted by jennifer at 05:01 PM | Comments (43) | TrackBack

October 04, 2006

Killer Greenhouse Effect (or Pardon my Anoxia): A Note from Luke

Luke Walker reminds us that geological history includes evidence of mass extinctions from "killer greenhouse conditions":

"Readers of this blog are often witness to accusations of alarmism by those opposed to scenario projections using contemporary anthropogenic global warming theory.

Comfort is often taken in the world having survived substantial climate swings in geological time and that some species such as reef building corals have come through that turmoil.

So it is with some irony that the October 2006 issue of Scientific American has a major article by Professor Peter Ward at the University of Washington suggests that extinction events in geological history have been caused by killer greenhouse conditions. What’s this – geological alarmism? Is nothing sacred?

“More than half life on the earth has been wiped out, repeatedly, in mass extinctions over the past 500 million years. One such disaster, which includes disappearance of the dinosaurs, is widely attributed to an asteroid impact, but others remain inadequately explained.

New fossil and geochemical evidence points to a shocking environmental mechanism for the largest of the ancient mass extinctions and possibly several more: an oxygen depleted ocean spewing poisonous gas as a result of global warming”

Apparently five times over the last 500 million years most of the world’s life forms have ceased to exist. End of the Ordovician 443 My ago; close of the Devonian 374 My; the Great Dying at the end of the Permian 251 My where 90% of ocean dwellers and 70% of land dwellers were obliterated; the end of the Triassic 201 My; and the end of the Cretaceous at 65 My with a likely asteroid impact.

However, new analyses are showing that some sudden extinctions were not that sudden lasting several hundred thousands of years.

It theoretically works something like this:

1. Volcanic activity releases carbon dioxide and methane

2. Rapid global warming occurs

3. Warm ocean absorbs less oxygen

4. Anoxia destabilises the chemocline where oxygenated surface waters meet H2S permeated waters in the ocean, anaerobic bacteria flourish

5. Hydrogen sulphide gas (H2S) gas upwells through the ocean as the chemocline rises to the ocean surface

6. Green and purple sulphur bacteria in the surface ocean thrive while oxygen breathers suffocate

7. H2S gas kills land animals and plants.

8. H2S destroys the ozone shield

9. Ultra violet radiation from the sun kills remaining life.

“A minor extinction at the end of the Palaeocene 54My ago was already – presciently – attributed to an interval of oceanic anoxia somehow triggered by short-term global warming.” Evidence is also present at the end of Triassic, middle Cretaceous, and late Devonian.

So are these extreme greenhouse effect extinctions possibly a recurring phenomenon in the earth’s history. Atmospheric CO2 was 1000ppm when extinctions began in the Palaeocene. “

So if the modern earth got close to 1000ppm this might represent something for our children to deal with. But maybe that’s just geological alarmism for you.

I’m getting a Lotto syndicate going called “Killer Greenhouse”.

More reading:

Climate simulation of the latest Permian: Implications for mass extinction by Jeffrey T. Kiehl & Christine A. Shields Climate Change Research Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA

Abrupt and Gradual Extinction Among Late Permian Land Vertebrates in the Karoo Basin, South Africa
Science 4 February 2005:Vol. 307. no. 5710, pp. 709 - 714 by Peter D. Ward,1* Jennifer Botha,3 Roger Buick,2 Michiel O. De Kock,5 Douglas H. Erwin,6 Geoffrey H. Garrison,2 Joseph L. Kirschvink,4 Roger Smith3

Photic Zone Euxinia During the Permian-Triassic Superanoxic Event, Science 4 February 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5710, pp. 706 - 709 by Kliti Grice, Changqun Cao, Gordon D. Love, Michael E. Böttcher, Richard J. Twitchett, Emmanuelle Grosjean, Roger E. Summons, Steven C. Turgeon, William Dunning,Yugan Jin

Massive Release of Hydrogen Sulphide to the Surface Ocean and Atmosphere during intervals of Oceanic Anoxia. Kump, L.R., Pavlov, A., Arthur, M.A. Geology: 33:5:397-400. May 2005."

------------------------
Thanks Luke. And I'm going to add to your reading list: The Past is the Key to the Present: Greenhouse and Icehouse Over Time by Prof Ian Plimer, IPA Review, Vol 55, No. 1. March 2003, pgs. 9-12.

Posted by jennifer at 05:50 PM | Comments (87)

October 03, 2006

Global Warming Bits & Pieces

I’ve received a few bits and pieces on global warming from readers of this blog:

Cathy sent me a link to an article explaining that the European Commission is set to roll out the first phase of a major pan-European marketing campaign to raise awareness of climate change:
http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=ViewNewsArticle&newsID=595977

Luke recommends http://www.theozonehole.com/climate.htm for everyone still wondering about the connection between ozone and global warming following the note from Helen Mahr, in particular:
"Ozone’s impact on climate consists primarily of changes in temperature. The more ozone in a given parcel of air, the more heat it retains. Ozone generates heat in the stratosphere, both by absorbing the sun’s ultraviolet radiation and by absorbing upwelling infrared radiation from the lower atmosphere (troposphere). Consequently, decreased ozone in the stratosphere results in lower temperatures. Observations show that over recent decades, the mid to upper stratosphere (from 30 to 50 km above the Earth’s surface) has cooled by 1° to 6° C (2° to 11° F). This stratospheric cooling has taken place at the same time that greenhouse gas amounts in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) have risen."

Warwick Hughes wrote: I have been very impressed with the breaking work of E-G Beck drawing attention to many published refs to high CO2 levels since 1820 and notably in WWII years. I have a Blog post on that at:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=64#more-64
There is a 10 page summary pdf file there. It will be fascinating to see if further support can be found for Beck's conclusions. Beck's detailing of the depth and quality of work which found these early high CO2 numbers supports the conclusions of Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski in his ice core research where he draws attention to the suppression of inconvenient high readings to fit the IPCC line.

George McCallum has sent me a beautiful picture of sunset over mountains and glacier in Isfjorden, Spitzbergen, with the note that Spitsbergen or Svalbard as it is also known, recorded one of the warmest summers on record this year. Isfjorden is just 900km from the North pole.

For beautiful pictures visit www.whalephoto.com

Posted by jennifer at 06:55 PM | Comments (40) | TrackBack

October 01, 2006

Switch to Concrete Railway Sleepers, Negates Wind Farm Savings

There is much community concern about global warming and an expectation we will all do our bit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So why did the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) decide to transfer its annual requirement for 400,000 railway sleepers from timber to concrete?

According to Mark Poynter* this will result in an extra 190,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year that could otherwise have been negated by carbon sequestered in forest regrowth and saved by avoiding concrete manufacture.

At the recent AEF conference Poynter said:

“To put this in perspective, the Victorian government has firmly embraced windfarms as part of its renewable energy strategy. They are estimated to be saving 250,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Some 75 percent of this has been negated by the ARTC preference for concrete sleepers.”

According to Minister Warren Truss back in April:

"This contract will provide a massive and ongoing boost to the Australian concrete and cement industry … the concrete sleepers can carry heavier loads and incur less maintenance costs. They provide a more consistent, stable and reliable track and have a longer life, with less degradation than timber, he said.

No mention of the greenhouse cost?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Mark Poynter is a member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia, he spoke at the recent AEF conference as part of a panel on ‘Saving Australia’s Forests’. ABC Online mentioned the conference last Friday, and in particular the AEF award to timber company Gunns Ltd.

Posted by jennifer at 04:05 PM | Comments (41) | TrackBack

September 26, 2006

The Human Impact On Climate - Additional to CO2: A Note from Paul Biggs

Paul Biggs from the University of Birmingham, UK, sent me the following summary of a presentation by Roger Pielke Sr. There is so much interesting information on the potential human impact on climate beyond a focus on carbon dioxide:

"Roger Pielke Sr, a respected climatologist of some 30 years, gave an interesting presentation of his perspective on climate science entitled 'Regional and Global Climate Forcings - The Need to Move Beyond a Focus of the Radiative Forcing of the Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gases' at the The 2006 Earth’s Radiative Energy Budget Related to SORCE Meeting in Washington.

The general conclusions that I draw from Pielke’s work are as follows:

Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide.

In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment, have all overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO2 relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate climate forcing on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change.

Pielke calculates the fraction of global warming due to the radiative forcing of increased atmospheric CO2, using the current IPCC framework on climate forcings:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/06.01.jpg.

This includes new findings on artic ozone, methane, albedo, and aerosols/black carbon with forcing calculated to be about 26.5%. This contrasts with the IPCC view of 48%.

He suggests new or under-recognized human climate forcings including:
biogeochemical effect of CO2, nitrogen deposition, land-use/land-cover change, glaciation effect of aerosols, thermodynamic effect of aerosols, surface energy budget effect.

Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated skill at predicting climate change and variability on multi-decadal time scales.

A postitive feedback is required in order to significantly amplify the radiative forcing of added carbon dioxide.

There is, as of yet, no evidence that atmospheric water vapor concentrations have increased (see http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/04/03/new-global-precip-papers-trend-is-zero-or-positive/).

Moreover, water vapor also changes phase (into liquid and ice clouds and precipitation) which greater complicates the actual climate response to added CO2 and other well-mixed greenhouse gases.

Attempts to significantly influence regional and local-scale climate based on controlling CO2 emissions alone is an inadequate policy for this purpose.

The needed focus for the study of climate change and variability is on the regional and local scales. Global and zonally averaged surface temperature trend assessments, besides having major difficulties in terms of how this metric is diagnosed and analyzed, do not provide significant information on climate change and variability on the regional and local scales.

It is this instrumental data that gives the plot of a hockey stick shape, grafted onto proxy data. Furthermore, if, for example, the temperature of an area of the desert were to increase from plus 40 degrees celsius to 41 degrees, while at the same time an equal area of the Antarctic decreased from minus 40 to minus 41, the average temperature of the earth would stay constant.

However, under the Stephan-Boltzman equation, more radiation would be emitted by increasing the temperature of the desert, than the radiation loss from Antarctica. Pielke will shortly have a paper published in JGR, which introduces this problem.

Global warming is not equivalent to climate change. Significant, societally important climate change, due to both natural and human climate forcings, can occur without any global warming or cooling.

The spatial pattern of ocean heat content change is the appropriate metric to assess climate system heat changes including global warming. Pielke examines the significant upper ocean cooling from 2003 reported by Lyman et al, 2006 (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2704.htm) to a depth of at least 750m, which was not predicted by climate models.

He cites 2 papers which support the diagnosis: A 2004 Science article by E. Pallé, P. R. Goode, P. Montañés-Rodríguez, and S. E. Kooninentitled 'Changes in Earth’s Reflectance Over the Past Two Decades' and a follow-on 2005 Geophysical Research Letters paper by Pallé E., P. Montañés-Rodriguez, P. R. Goode, S. E. Koonin, M. Wild, and S. Casadio entitled 'A multi-data comparison of shortwave climate forcing changes' (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005.../2005GL023847.shtml ).

Finally, I must point out that Pielke says all of this is not a reason not to seek to reduce CO2 emissions."

Thanks Paul for the summary and also to Luke, for emphasising to me the importance of getting this information up as a new post/thread.

Posted by jennifer at 10:07 PM | Comments (64) | TrackBack

September 25, 2006

Skepticism Versus Being An AGW Skeptic: A Note from David Tribe

The Australian Environment Foundation had its first conference and AGM last weekend.* There was some discussion on the subject of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

In my talk I suggested that in the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Al Gore took away the potential for dissent by making global warming a moral issue. I suggested he turned it into an issue of faith.

I quoted Thomas Huxley (a colleague of Charles Darwin) who once wrote something along the lines of “religion is for morality, science is for factuality”.

I went on to suggest that there is no ‘truth’, however inconvenient, that should not be exposed to the blow torch of healthy skepticism and there should be no claim, however morally appealing, that we are not prepared to test against the available evidence.

After my paper there was some discussion about semantics, in particular, David Tribe made comment that it is important to be clear about the distinction between skepticism and being an AGM skeptic.

He made the same point as a comment at another blog post this afternoon:

“This is a good a place as any for me to repeat my view said previously directly to Jen Marohasy that it's highly important to be clear about semantic distinction between scepticism and being a sceptic on AGW. The later implying you reject well established findings.

I consider that it is part of scientific ethics to always be upfront about the limitation to current data and theories. That is, to know and freely state where certainty and range of precision lie, and to never have to apologise for expecting that, because to fail in doing this do so is professionally unethical.

To demand clearer statements from IPCC about the validity and uncertainty range of their claims is not necessarily to be in disagreement with the validity of parts of their model, but normal ethical practice in science. For example IPCC clearly failed ethically in the hockey stick episode. The computer model has numerous complex assumptions that are empirically unproven.

I note also there is substantial empirical evidence for solar forcing processes whose mechanisms are uncertain. That does not mean I am an AGW sceptic: I want to see those aspects of the IPCC model tested against this recent interesting solar driving hypothesis as it could mean all the CO2 efforts being advocated (Kyoto etc) are completely unnecessary or indeed counter productive.”

Does David make an important point? Most so-called AGW skeptics are not AGW skeptics. They do not deny that C02 causes warming, but rather recognize the limitations of the current data and theories.

In calling us AGW skeptics, are the AGW alarmists suggesting we deny the physics of carbon dioxide based forcing?

So is my recent blog post entitled 'How to Become a Global Warming Skeptic' misleading, because while I accepted the label, and encouraged others to nominate for the label, I also explained that I don’t deny global warming or climate change or that increasing levels of carbon dioxide may drive warming.

Should we reject the ‘global warming skeptic’ label? What would George Orwell of said?

-----------------------------
* I'll do a summary of the AEF conference for this blog in due course and link to the conference papers which should be up at the AEF website by the end of the week. In the meantime you can see some of the photos from the conference at
http://www.aefweb.info/display/con2006gallery.html . Some regular contributors to this blog were at the conference including David Tribe and Walter Starck.

Posted by jennifer at 10:34 PM | Comments (82) | TrackBack

Low Temperatures Over Antarctica

I received the following note:

"Hi Jennifer,

Tonight the ABC news reported on the large ozone hole over the Antarctic.

On the news, first it was claimed that the large hole was responsible for the record cold weather there. Then that the cold weather was destroying the ozone and causing the hole.

Can you have it both ways?

Cheers, Helen Mahar"

According to ABC New Online:

"Dr Paul Fraser from the CSIRO says the lowest temperatures ever recorded in Antarctica's upper stratosphere this winter - minus 85 degrees - are the cause.

"It's certainly the coldest we have ever seen and it requires very cold temperatures to get very significant ozone depletion," Dr Fraser said."

And how does this fit with the IPCC global warming projections?

Posted by jennifer at 10:00 PM | Comments (33) | TrackBack

September 24, 2006

California – goes for broke on greenhouse – mad, bad or visionary ?

I received the following note from a reader of this blog:

"Last Wednesday the state of California, the world’s 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases sued the country's largest automobile manufacturers, seeking billions of dollars for environmental damage caused by automobile emissions.

It was the state's latest effort to combat the effects of greenhouse gases. The lawsuit drew praise and criticism for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who filed it on behalf of the state.

“The complaint, which an auto industry trade group called a "nuisance" suit, names General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp, the US arm of Germany's DaimlerChrysler AG and the North American units of Japan's Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co Ltd.

Mr Lockyer says he is seeking "tens or hundreds of millions of dollars" from the auto makers in the lawsuit, which has been filed in US District Court in northern California.

Environmental groups have praised the actions to the lawsuit, saying it represents another weapon for the state as it seeks to curb greenhouse gas emissions and spur the auto industry to build vehicles that pollute less.”

“Legal experts had mixed views about the lawsuit's viability. Sean Hecht, a UCLA environmental law expert, called the approach "not unreasonable" under precedents that go back to English common law.

"It's novel, but based on standard nuisance law, they certainly have a shot at convincing a judge that the burdens this industry imposes on society are too great," Hecht said.

But USC tort law expert Greg Keating wondered whether Lockyer was trying to advance an untenable argument that automakers collectively are creating a nuisance by selling cars that emit carbon dioxide. "I doubt it has legs," he said.

Industry are most concerned and say the suit opens the door to lawsuits targeting any activity that uses fossil fuel for energy."

CNN has run a philosophical piece “Is this the end of the road for the car?”

The lawsuit comes less than a month after California law makers adopted the nation's first global warming law, mandating a cut in greenhouse gas emissions.

“The bill would require a 25% cut in emissions of greenhouse gases between now and 2020 and is likely to use mandatory emissions caps on power plants, refineries and other heavy industry as well as energy efficiency measures and an emissions trading program.

To reach 1990 levels of greenhouse gases, as the law mandates, experts say California will need to eliminate 174 million metric tons. About one-third would come as a result of an earlier car tailpipe emissions law in California that has been challenged by automakers in court.

Although the economic effects of a mandatory cut in emissions could be sweeping, California has a lot at stake in the battle against global warming, perhaps more than any other state, climate experts say.

Its water supplies, its top industry — agriculture — and its most popular recreational activities all depend on a healthy climate, as do forests, deserts, ocean ecosystems and the species that inhabit them.

Amid concern about worldwide climate change, the Californian Assembly approved the bill by a 46-31 vote. It passed 23 to 14 in the Senate.

California is the world's 12th-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, responsible for 10% of the carbon dioxide produced nationally and 2.5% globally”. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-warm1sep01,1,3291716.story

Some commentators have said the whole business will be ruinous for the Californian economy and drive investment out of the state. However others have foreshadowed a big opportunity for trading in emission credits and that the whole initiative will position California ahead of the game. The legislation has escape provisions for “emergency” circumstances. The Economist reports an increasing number of businesses getting “into” climate change.

The emissions cap bill now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said that he would sign it. He is running for re-election in November and trailing in the polls. Arnie hypocritically has a collection of eight Hummers but hey - he’s a big guy. Anyway this makes one wonder how much greenhouse reality we all really want.

So are California legislators mad, bad or visionary?"

I wonder how a government that has built roads and freeways for cars to travel on, can now sue car manufacturers for environmental damage from emissions?

Posted by jennifer at 10:56 PM | Comments (32) | TrackBack

September 22, 2006

Saved from Global Warming by The Sun?

When Bob Foster posted a note here in April claiming that the sun drives climate and the next little ice age will be in 2030 he was roundly condemned by many AGW believers.

Now there is an article in New Scientist also suggesting "that the sun is about to enter another quiet period".

The abstract includes comment that:

"It is known as the Little Ice Age. Bitter winters blighted much of the northern hemisphere for decades in the second half of the 17th century. The French army used frozen rivers as thoroughfares to invade the Netherlands. New Yorkers walked from Manhattan to Staten Island across the frozen harbour. Sea ice surrounded Iceland for miles and the island's population halved. It wasn't the first time temperatures had plunged: a couple of hundred years earlier, between 1420 and 1570, a climatic downturn claimed the Viking colonies on Greenland, turning them from fertile farmlands into arctic wastelands.

Could the sun have been to blame? We now know that, curiously, both these mini ice ages coincided with prolonged lulls in the sun's activity - the sunspots and dramatic flares that are driven by its powerful magnetic field.

Now some astronomers are predicting that the sun is about to enter another quiet period."

You can read the full article 'Global warming: Will the Sun come to our rescue?' by Stuart Clark which was published on 18th September by clicking here.

Posted by jennifer at 10:15 PM | Comments (36) | TrackBack

Richard Branson to Back New Technologies In Fight Against AGW

Speaking from New York, Virgin Blue Boss Sir Richard Branson has said transport and energy companies must be at the forefront of developing environmentally friendly business strategies and has pledged to invest US$3bn (£1.6bn) to fight global warming.

Branson said he would commit all profits from his travel firms, such as airline Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, over the next 10 years.

It seems that Branson recognizes anthropogenic global warming is an issue that can potentially be solved through new technologies and he plans to invest in new renewable energy technologies through Virgin Fuels.

This approach is consistent with the approach advocated by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Also known as the AP6, this group includes ‘kyoto dissidents' Australia and the US, as well as China, India, South Korea and Japan.

Together these countries account for about half of the world's GDP, population, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The partnership was announced in Laos in July last year and they met for the first time in Sydney in January.

The AP6, like Branson, recognise that the solution to anthropogenic global warming is potentially in the development, sharing and promotion of new and improved technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course this approach will also solve 'the peak oil' problem because once we move beyond our dependence on fossil fuels it won't matter how much oil is left.

Posted by jennifer at 08:35 AM | Comments (50) | TrackBack

September 21, 2006

Crikey! The Islands Are Still There: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 3)

Australia's tabloid e-news site Crikey has been suggesting that there are only a few misguided global warming skeptics. On Line Opinion's editor, Graham Young, has written to Crikey suggesting they, rather than the skeptics, are misguided. Anyway, they haven't published this note which he sent them a few days ago:

Hey Guys,

If you’re going to put Christopher Pearson on your global warming skeptics list because he pointed out that claims that Tuvalu and Kiribati are sinking due to global warming are fraudulent, then you’d better put me on your list too. Check out http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/000593.html and http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/000185.html.

I know Al Gore claims that the islands have already sunk and the inhabitants immigrated to New Zealand, but all that proves is that his documentary is faction, not fact. Maybe you should put your skeptics list in your religion section, if you had one, because it seems to be operating on the same scientific basis as intelligent design. Oh, and for the record, while I believe that carbon dioxide contributes to warming of the globe, I have little faith in the accuracy of climate models. Funnily enough, according to John Quiggin at the BrisScience Forum last night, neither does he, so perhaps you should put him on the list as well.

What’s Crikey trying to do - muscle in on Green Left Weekly’s patch?

By the way, as a declaration of pecuniary interest and potential bias I’ve never knowingly received funding from petroleum companies, but if Shell, Exxon or Mobil want to put a banner, tower or island advertisement on the site, and pay for it, then they’re welcome.

The commonsense view on global warming is that there are a range of scenarios, and one should take precautions for the more likely ones, whilst maintaining an economy robust enough to deal with as many as possible. One should never take at face values the assertion of lobbyists or scientists in the pay of big oil, or global warming driven research grants, or any other scientists or lobbyists for that matter. And limiting carbon dioxide output in the 25% of the world that is industrialised while excluding the other 75% which is racing as quickly as possible to increase its carbon dioxide emissions, was always an absurd way to tackle the problem.

I feel much better now that I have come out of the closet and am looking forward to being on your list of people robust enough to ask the hard questions - the sort of thing that I thought Crikey was all about.

Regards,
Graham Young
Chief Editor, On Line Opinion"

I can't work out why Gore would make the claims that he does in the movie about the Pacific Islands. He actually says that the citizens of Pacific Islands have had to be evacuated to New Zealand because of rising sea-levels.

I'm happy to be corrected, but this is what I understand the situation to be with respect to Pacific Islands and sea-level:

1. Since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, global-averaged sea level has risen by more than 100 metres as large ice sheets have melted.

2. There is still a general trend of rising global sea level at the rate of 1.8mm per year over the period 1950-2000 with no evidence of an increase in the rate of sea level rise over this period.*

3. The great majority of oceanic islands, including in the Pacific, were formed by volcanic activity. While the volcanoes are active, the islands rise relative to the global averaged sea-level. When volcanic activity stops, the islands will cool and eventually start to sink. So there are islands rising and sinking all the time.

4. According to Marlo Lewis in 'A Skeptic's Guide to the Inconvenient Truth' ** tide gauge records show that sea levels at Tuvalu actually fell during the latter half of the 20th Century. This is an island often quoted as being lost to rising sea levels including in Al Gore's book also called 'An Inconvenient Truth' where there is a two-page photograph and reference to the islands of Funafuti and Tuvalu and residents having to evacuate their homes because of rising seas.

In summary some Pacific islands are sinking, while some Pacific Islands are rising and it was incorrect of Al Gore to suggest that the issue is "rising seas".

It is also wrong for Crikey's journalist Sophie Black to suggest there is something wrong with Christopher Pearson for publicly exposing this inconvenient truth.

----------------
* Church et al. 2004, Estimates of the Regional Distribution of Sea Level Rise over the 1950-2000 Period. American Meteorological Society, pgs 2609-2625.

** I understand this assessment was published by the CEI and that they are funded by Big Oil, and as Graham Young states at a recent blog post: Isn't it a pity that we have to rely on oil companies to finance the devil's advocate position on global warming? And if you're inclined to that style of rebuttal, just bear in mind that Al Gore's political career was financed in part by the tobacco industry.

Posted by jennifer at 07:37 PM | Comments (15)

September 19, 2006

Cassowaries Mating: A Note from Neil Hewett

I received the followed note and pictures from Neil Hewett of Cooper Creek Wilderness in the magnificent Daintree Rainforest of Far North Queensland. Neil wrote: "These magnificent birds once roamed more than half the land-surface of the planet, but for the inconvenience of global cooling and drying."

These images were captured at Cooper Creek Wilderness by Brian and Rosemary Mulcahy of Ormond, Victoria.

Posted by jennifer at 09:33 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

How to Become a Global Warming Skeptic

In an early blog post titled 'Debate and Dissent is Healthy', part of my series on Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth', I explained how tabloid e-news site Crikey had started a list of global warming skeptics and was suggesting that we were a small and misguided 'clique'.

According to their journalist Sophie Black I got on the list because I once wrote: "As a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are currently increasing. There is no evidence, however, to suggest this will bring doom or that, by signing the Kyoto Protocol, Australia would make a significant difference to global carbon dioxide levels or to the rate of climate change."

So it's not so much that I deny global warming or climate change (and by the way I don't), or that I deny that increasingly levels of carbon dioxide may drive some warming, but rather I have been labeled a skeptic because I don't believe in Kyoto or that the current elevated atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide mean we are ruin.

Today Crikey has published the names of MORE so-called global warming skeptics. It includes: Miranda Devine (Sydney Morning Herald columnist), my colleague at the IPA Alan Moran, Prof Jon Jenkins, (NSW Parliament), blogger Tim Blair, radio broadcaster Alan Jones, the Prime Minister John Howard, Alan Oxley (Head of APEC Studies Centre at Monash University), Christopher Pearson (columnist with The Weekend Australian), The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network's John Eyles and Christian Kerr (Crikey journalist).

But Christian was given the opportunity to immediately deny that he is a skeptics with the comment: "I’m not a climate change sceptic. I’m not a Chicken Little, either. Science shows us that global temperatures have varied throughout the earth’s history. And science has also shown itself more than capable of overcoming remarkable challenges. Sorry if that disappoints the apocalyptically-minded."

Come on Christian Kerr! If I am a skeptic you're a skeptic. I also believe in science and technology and haven't written anywhere that the sky is falling in.

The original global warming skeptics list published by Crikey on Friday included William Kininmonth (former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation), Ray Evans (once executive at Western Mining Corporation), Chris Mitchell (Editor-in-chief of The Australian), Terry McCrann (News Ltd business writer), Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun columnist), Hugh Morgan (head of the Business Council of Australia until 2005), Alan Wood (The Australian's finance writer), Ian Castles (Former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics), Ian Plimer (Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide), Bob Carter (A former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, Professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University) and me.

I am going to nominate a reader, commentator and contributor to this blog Paul Williams to the growing clique of global warming skeptics for his great contribution to dissent and debate by way of that blog post titled 'Hockey Sticks & Ancient Pine Trees'.

And also, On Line Opinion editor and blogger, Graham Young, for suggesting Tuvalu and Kiribati still exist as Pacific Islands in his blog post of 8th May last year entitled 'Antropophagai anyone'.

I invite others to nominate their favourite skeptic with a short justification by way of comment below.

You may also like to send your nomination and justification to Crikey with an email to boss@crikey.com.au.

--------------------------------------
Today's Crikey list include the following contributions from the named skeptics:
Miranda Divine for 'Its the End as He Knows it' published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10th August, and
Alan Moran for 'Alarm on Global Warming Just a Load of Hot Air' published in the Age on 8th September.

Posted by jennifer at 07:40 PM | Comments (111)

September 16, 2006

Debate and Dissent is Healthy: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 2)

In 'An Inconvenient Truth' Al Gore repeatedly suggests that all the 'so-called global warming skeptics' are in the pay of a big oil company probably Exxon Mobil. Never once during this so-called documentary does Gore acknowledge that there is potential for an alternative thesis on global warming and the role of carbon dioxide. All dissent is met with ridicule and/or name calling.

Al Gore certainly doesn't appear to understand the potential value of hypotheses testing. Instead Gore reduces global warming to a moral issue and a contest between the good guys, which according to Gore includes all of the world's climate scientists, and the so-bad so-called skeptics, who he suggests are all hired guns.

Gore is clearly not a fan of Socrates who once said wrote that the highest form of human excellence is to question one-self and others.

The Gore approach has certainly brought out the worst in some journalists with Sophie Black from Crikey, a so-called independent online media service, ditching independent analysis for branding.

Yesterday, she wrote in a piece entitled 'The Global Warming Sceptics Club - a Crikey list':

"But the majority of scientists in Australia believe that reasonable debate about the substance of global warming ended some time ago. What remains at issue is potential rates of change and the scale of destruction, a problem many have moved onto addressing. But even in the most optimistic scenarios, the news is not good.

Which means the doubters are starting to reduce to a small, exclusive clique. Crikey has compiled an unofficial membership list of the Global Warming Sceptics Club -- meet the commentators who don't see what all the fuss is about."

Her list includes me (Jennifer Marohasy) along with William Kininmonth (former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation), Ray Evans (once executive at Western Mining Corporation), Chris Mitchell (Editor-in-chief of The Australian), Terry McCrann (News Ltd business writer), Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun columnist), Hugh Morgan (head of the Business Council of Australia until 2005), Alan Wood (The Australian's finance writer), Ian Castles (Former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics), Ian Plimer (Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide) and Bob Carter (A former director of the Australian Ocean Drilling Office, Professor of paleoclimatology at James Cook University).

Like Al Gore, instead of analyzing the quality of our argument(s), Black makes one or other of the following comments next to each of our names, and in the context of other comment, insinuates that we have a vested interest in maintaining what she considers to be an increasingly untenable position: "closely associated to the mining industry", "News Ltd" or "a member of the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs)".

Most of us might be just independent thinkers who have taken the time and effort to try and understand the issue and have come to a different conclusion and refuse to be bullied into the consensus position.

It is somewhat shocking that in 2006, an independent news service like Crikey, and a much revered so-called documentary like 'An Inconvenient Truth' can be so openly intolerant and dismissive of any alternative perspective on such an important issue as climate change.

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The Crikey piece by Sophie Black includes links to some recent public commentary by the so-called Clique on 'An Inconvenient Truth':

William Kinimonth, Don't be Gored into going along, The Australian, 12th September: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20393768-7583,00.html

Andrew Bolt, Bulled by a Gore, Herald Sun, 13th September: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20400748-5000117,00.html

Terry McCran, Al Gore's Day After Tomorrow Sequel, Herald Sun, 12th September :http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20394654-36281,00.html

Chris Mitchell, Editorial: It's not the end of the world, The Australian, 4th September :http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20346728-7583,00.html

and also An Inconvenient cost, The Australian, 12th September: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20393954-7583,00.html

I will be writing something for my next Counterpoint column on the 2nd October.

Posted by jennifer at 05:40 PM | Comments (158) | TrackBack

September 12, 2006

Global Dimming: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 1)

I’ve been in Hong Kong two days now and I haven’t seen the sun yet.

My hotel room has a magnificent view over the harbour. I did see some sun beams early yesterday morning penetrating through the smog haze over the harbour – but no sun.

Photograph taken looking from Hung Hom (Kowloon) east to the island of Hong Kong from the top of the Harbour Plaza Hotel on 11th September 2006 at about 3pm.

It’s an eight hour flight from Brisbane to Hong Kong and I tuned the screen in the back of the seat in-front of me to Al Gore’s new movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and watched the movie a couple of times. I had already seen it at a cinema in Brisbane the day before, so I’ve now seen 'An Inconvenient Truth' three times.

It’s a mighty piece of propaganda in which Gore doesn’t let a single inconvenient truth get in the way of his thesis that the earth is already experiencing dramatic climate change as a result of extremely elevated carbon dioxide levels.

Early in the movie there is a cartoon depicting a 'Mr Sunbeam' marching down to earth only to be trapped and then beaten up by some ‘global warming thugs’. An analogy is made between the bodies of dead ‘sunbeams’ piling up within the earth’s atmosphere and planet earth overheating.

Gore is correct to indicate that carbon dioxide levels have risen dramatically over recent decades, but he is wrong to suggest there has been a corresponding dramatic increase in temperature. Global air temperatures have only risen by about 0.6C over the last 30 years – though more dramatically at the Arctic. He suggests sea temperatures have also risen dramatically as an explanation for the veracity of hurricane Katrina.

Gore was correct to indicate that with global warming there should be a corresponding increasing in rainfall and snowfall, but it is unclear to me whether this has actually been the case. I understand more snowing is falling on Greenland, but less on the Australian Alps.

Gore went on to claim more rain is falling in more extreme events giving the example of Mumbai (India) in July 2005. He also indicated that rainfall patterns are changing with places like the African Sahel experiencing more extreme drought.

In the movie, all of this was attributed to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. There was no mention in the movie of global dimming, which a growing scientific literature* suggests has the effect of reducing global temperatures as well as potentially reducing rainfall and snowfall by affecting both cloud droplet coalescence and ice precipitation formation. There is also potential for this phenomenon to change precipitation patterns, with the pollution from Australia’s capital cities and industrial areas potential creating a downwind rain shadow.

Global dimming is a consequence of increasing levels of urban and industrial pollution with man-made airborne aerosols having the effect of sending Al Gore’s 'Mr Sunbeams' back into space, in effect saving them from the global warming thugs depicted in the cartoon in the movie.

So the haze that has been hanging over Hong Kong, can potentially counteract the increasing levels of carbon dioxide. This potentially explains why global temperatures have not increased dramatically.

Of course there are other explanations, but given the anticipated growth in the Chinese and other economies, and the likely corresponding increase in air pollution, shouldn’t Gore have at least acknowledged the issue?

Al Gore’s movie purports to present facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way. But Gore so simplifies and exaggerates just one aspect of our understanding of climate physics that it would perhaps have been more honest to have called the movie ‘A Plug for Anthropogenic Global Warming Wthout All The Inconvenient Truths’.

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* I was recently sent the following very interesting papers on global dimming and its potential impact on rainfall in Australia: Rosenfeld, D. (2000) Suppression of rain and snow by urban and industrial air pollution. Science, Vol 287, pp 1793-1796. Rosenfeld et. al. (2005) Potential impacts of air pollution aerosols on precipitation in Australia. Clean Air and Environmental Quality, Vol 40, No. 2, pp 43-49. Rosenfeld, D. (2006) Aerosols, Clouds and Climate. Science, Vol 312, pp. 1323 – 1324. ABC TV Four Corners did a feature on global dimming in March 2005, the transcript and reference documents can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1328747.htm

I’m hoping to publish a few blog pieces on the movie and invite guest posts from others: email your contribution to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .

Posted by jennifer at 04:07 PM | Comments (76) | TrackBack

September 09, 2006

Weather it Will Rain on The 18th Birthday Party

My daughter turns 18 on 19th February 2007 and we are planning a party. February is often wet in Brisbane. We want to invite lots of people and hold the party outside in the backyard. Will it rain on us?

According to a book I’ve been reading by Ken Ring entitled ‘Predict Weather for Australia: Almanac and Isobaric Maps 2007’ published by Random House we are perhaps better to wait until late March to hold the party.

On page 121 he writes that between the 19th and 26th March, Brisbane can expect the longest dry and sunny spell of the month.

In contrast Ring writes on page 87 that the first 10 days of February will bring a passing front and moderate rainfall, then between the 15th and 20th there will be persistently overcast days and heavier amounts of rain and the last week of February will see another front bringing more rain.

The book has detailed predictions for all of 2007 with a focus on Australia’s capital cities.

Ring bases his predictions on lunar cycles in particular drawing on five of the lunar cycles known most to astronomers on the basis each creates an orbiting pattern that influences weather. He writes that these cycles feed into each other and fit like cogs in a gearbox with such celestial precision that after each lunar cycle of around 130 years, the moon returns to the same place in the sky with respect to the background of stars.

The five cycles are: 1. the cycle of the phase (new moon to new moon), 2. the cycle of declination (north to south and north again), 3. the apsidal cycle (moon speed change), 4. the perigee(closest to furthest away each month), and 5. the cycle of moonrise and moon set timing (air-tide in and out).

Ring explains that combinations of these lunar cycles produce weather peculiarities and when peaks in two or three cycles occur on or near the same day, extreme weather can result.

Perhaps not surprisingly Ring is a global warming skeptic.

To what extent should I consider Ring’s predictions in the planning of my daughter’s 18th birthday party?

Posted by jennifer at 08:44 AM | Comments (60)

August 29, 2006

Sea Levels Falling in the Arctic?

According to an article entitled 'Arctic dips as global waters rise' published at BBC News, sea levels in the Arctic have been falling by a little over 2mm a year. It goes on to explain that while it is well known that the world's oceans do not share a uniform height, the scientists are nevertheless puzzled by their findings. And so am I.

Read the full article here.

Posted by jennifer at 10:25 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

August 28, 2006

Drought & Temperature: An Update for Australia from David

Jen,

I've noticed your recent thread on the long-term hydrological drought affecting eastern Australia. I've whipped off a few charts for you which put this into an historical context based on rainfall data going back to 1900 (some limited earlier data is available).

In terms of eastern Australia, the current meteorological drought s