Archives for November 18, 2005

The Courier Mail published a piece by Prof Bob Carter earlier in the week titled Keep a Weather Eye Open in which Bob has a bit of fun at the expense of ‘global warming believers’. Bob writes:

The subject of the report [by the Queensland Government], released last week, was climate change and, given its contents, it carried the unlikely moniker, “Climate Smart”.

In the second paragraph of the ministers’ introductory message we learn that “our climate . . . is changing”. This underwhelming message – for climate has always changed and always will – scarcely seems to justify the expense of distributing such a glossy booklet.

Go on, have a chuckle! I did.

Bob is skeptical about our ability to predict future climate.

I find it fascinating that we seem unable to accurately acknowledge current climate.

Following a documentary on ABC TV last week about the recent drought at Condobolin in central western New South Wales, Perth-based climate skeptic Warwick Hughes had a look at the long term climate record for that region.

While the documentary suggested Condobolin has just experienced the worst drought on record, Warwick shows that there is nothing particularly unique about recent years in terms of rainfall, click here.

Warwick also comments:

The high rainfall years post the 1940’s correspond with a period of cloud seeding experiments in NSW from post WWII to 1974. With cloud seeding “on the nose” due to Green opposition it is thus possible that high rainfall yearsover 650 mm may be rare in the future.

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For more climate related pieces by Warwick, click here.

Full Text from the Courier Mail follows. I have copied it here as the Courier tends not to keep the same URL for it’s opinion pieces.

Keep a weather eye open
Bob Carter
16nov05
Bob Carter can’t find any conviction in the latest climate talk.

If, could, may, might, probably, perhaps, likely, expected, projected . . . wonderful words.

So wonderful, in fact, that Queensland ministers Henry Palaszczuk (Resources) and Desley Boyle (Environment) are unable to resist using them more than 50 times in a 32-page report.

That’s a rate of almost twice a page.

The subject of the report, released last week, was climate change and, given its contents, it carried the unlikely moniker, “Climate Smart”.

In the second paragraph of the ministers’ introductory message we learn that “our climate . . . is changing”. This underwhelming message – for climate has always changed and always will – scarcely seems to justify the expense of distributing such a glossy booklet.

Read on. The next sentence informs us: “The changes observed over the last century cannot be explained by natural influences alone. Human activities are helping to change our climate.”

And then off the ministers go on one of their “could probably” runs, asserting that Queensland’s climate could be more variable and extreme in the future “with more droughts, heatwaves and heavy rainfall” and probably with “maximum temperatures and heavy downpours . . . beyond our current experiences”.

Really? How do the ministers know all this?

Well, read on some more, and on page seven you will be rewarded with the knowledge that “climate change projections are developed from a range of computer-based models of global climate, and scenarios of future global greenhouse gas emissions”. Ahaaah! So we are talking about computer predictions here. No wonder the ministers are in “could probably” mode.

For, as French military expert Pierre Gallois has pointed out: “If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no one dares criticise it.”

But actually we are not talking about computer predictions at all, but, as the ministers rightly say, with computer scenarios. What a difference that word makes.

The dynamics of climate and its changes are incredibly complex and include abundant non-linear relationships between different factors, such as increasing carbon dioxide and temperature.

As Edward Lorenz, chaos theoretician and discoverer of the “butterfly effect”, knew only too well, tiny changes in marginal factors in such systems can dramatically change the outcome, since non-linear systems are inherently unpredictable.

No matter how clever our scientists or how big and fast we make our computers, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to predict climate accurately 50 years or more in advance. The scientists who produced the “predictions” of future Queensland climate for the ministers understand the non-linear nature of climate full well, which is precisely why they use the term “scenarios” to describe the imaginary futures painted by their advanced computer games.

Indeed, so keen are they to avoid being held legally accountable for their opinions that the CSIRO climate modelling team has inserted the following disclaimer in the report it prepared for the Queensland Government: “This report relates to climate change scenarios based on computer modelling. Models involve simplifications of the real processes that are not fully understood.

“Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO or the Queensland Government for the accuracy of forecasts or predictions inferred from this report or for any person’s interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance on this report.”

You “could probably” say that the authors of the climate change scenarios being deployed by the Queensland Government on our behalf, though not for our benefit, seem a teensy-weensy bit lacking in confidence in their projections.

Swedish oceanographer Professor Gosta Wallin got it right when he said: “The Global Climate Models are nothing more than interesting toys to play with. In no other ‘science’ would it be possible to use predictions (from GCMs) with no prediction value – call them scenarios – which is only guess work, and be serious about it.”

But let us leave the last word with one of Australia’s most distinguished climate scientists, a founder member and long-time supporter of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a former chief of the Bureau of Meteorology.

John Zillman said (and he is right) that “the most important question – should global warming proceed as the IPCC reports suggest – is how will warming be manifest at the national, regional and local level, and what would that mean for each of us?” Zillman answered his important question by saying: “I believe this question is, at present, completely unanswerable.”

He is right again, for all competent experts in computer modelling agree with his assessment that regional climate prediction is impossible. How can it be that ministers Palaszczuk and Boyle, and the Queensland Government, know better?

If, could, may, might, probably, perhaps, likely, expected, projected …

Words of conviction? I don’t think so. Words of weaseldom? Let the reader judge.

* Professor Bob Carter carries out research at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University. He studies ancient climate records from deep sea core materials

Other newspaper articles by Bob can be found here: http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_1.htm .

There was a big conference in Melbourne this week titled Greenhouse 2005: Action on Climate Change . I didn’t see much coverage in the national media but The Age ran a feature every day on the perils of climate change to coincide with the event, click here, here and here (and there was more!).

A reader of this web-log was carefully following the dire predictions and sent in the following summary:

2005 may go down in the record books as the warmest year on the global record. What a perfect backdrop for the international Greenhouse 2005 conference held in Melbourne over the last week. 350 delegates from science, industry and government attended for a review of climate change science, likely impacts and strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The conference saw the who’s who of climate change in Australia pouring over the facts and figures and making impassioned speeches on future needs.

The conference was opened by the Governor-General, Michael Jeffrey, who as a “concerned layman” called for action on climate change. General Jeffrey lists melting peat bogs in Russia, storm surges in Florida, and loss of the Antarctic ice sheet as concerns.

The Age reported the GG as “passionate” about the climate change issue. He listed a raft of alternative energy options to be explored – with interestingly nuclear power being one of those options. Setting the tone for the conference the GG said “As a concerned layman, I would suggest the Australian public, to become fully energised on global warming, needs to have a general idea on the answers to the following questions:
* what is the broad global picture in respect to global warming now, and say in 50 years time under projected rates of energy use?;
* what is generally agreed about the warming situation in Australia now and in 50 years time, including its likely impact on our agriculture, weather patterns and general living?;
* What might be the solutions; the way ahead, globally, nationally, and individually?”

The Bureau of Meteorology was strong on message that a climate trend was definitely on in Australia: “Australia has experienced its warmest start to a year on record (since 1950), with the January-to-October temperature averaging 1.03 degrees Celsius above the 30-year average (1961-1990). As the year nears an end, a record-breaking year is looking likely – another indicator of climate change. Annual mean temperatures have generally increased throughout Australia since 1910, particularly since the 1950s,” says Mike Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre within the Bureau of Meteorology. As the average temperature has risen, we have also seen an increase in the incidence of hot days and hot nights, and a reduction in the number of cold days and nights. This warming is mirrored in the oceans around Australia.

Warming is not the only sign of change we are observing in Australia’s climate. Other changes include a marked decline in rainfall in the south-west and parts of south-east Australia, and recent reductions in rainfall through the eastern states. At the same time, rainfall in the arid interior and north-west has increased dramatically, in some places nearly doubling during the past 50 years.”

CSIRO have produced the most precise record of greenhouse gas fluctuations in the Southern Hemisphere over the past 2000 years. They add that the greatest increase in greenhouse gas growth has occurred since the 1980s, with carbon dioxide showing accelerating growth. Other CSIRO researchers such as Penny Whetton warned of changes to extreme weather – more heatwaves, floods, droughts and more intense tropical cyclones. CSIRO are also investigating how climate change interacts with natural short, medium and longer term cycles.

The Australian National University’s Dr Will Steffen warned of surprises in the climate system where abrupt climate change may occur in just a few years. Such surprises appear to already exist in the paleo-climate records.

The Age newspaper ran a series of daily feature articles during the week following the conference. Some excerpts are:
The scenario for the Murray River already beset by droughts and ecological concern for its aquatic health suffers a double whammy blow of reduced rainfall and higher evaporation. CSIRO’s computer projections have winter rain systems sliding towards Antarctica – a shift that have already started in the last eight years. Droughts become more intense and longer, summer storms are more intense, and heatwaves more common. Environmental flows already provided by river managers may be further eroded as reduced water availability hits home. The Age cites dead and dying riparian vegetation, algal blooms and loss of vertebrate biodiversity. Naturally concerns of irrigators and the environment are on a collision course. CSIRO economist Mike Young says farmers will have to become more adaptive and more climate savvy to swing with increased seasonal variation. As it gets hotter some crops will require more water, crops requiring winter chilling like almonds, apples and cherries may have yield reductions from warmer winter temperatures.

At the opposite end of the nation in the iconic Kakadu Park creeping salinsation into the freshwater wetlands has occurred over the last 50 years. While the current cause is not likely to be attributable to climate change further rises in sea level and changes in rainfall pattern will increase and accelerate the trend. The park’s paperbark vegetation is thickening up considerably – a combination of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, changed fire and rainfall regimes are all possibilities. If the system transforms into a salt environment the wetland flora and fauna will go – replaced by mangroves. Some 60 species of water birds are also at stake. The debate about building a barrage to hold back the sea incursion and the salt is on in earnest.
Across on the Queensland coast the Bellenden Kerr range is an ecological island – a refuge of a species assemblage from a cooler and moister Australia of 20 million years ago. A two degree rise would see the wet tropics ecosystem start to disappear with animals needing move upslope to beat the heat. With a 3.5 degree rise 65 species unique to the area would vanish into extinction. If you live at or reach the top of the mountain there is nowhere to go. These is debate about past warm periods but these may have been wetter than today so providing some relief. Can animals genetically adapt to their new environments? Unfortunately it appears that breeding cycles are too long. Some species don’t even breed every year and only have a few offspring. The other combinative effect is a change in the cloud forest with the cloud base rising each year. This may not affect water supply to the forest but also affect the water supplies in the Cairns regions.

The great Australian icon – the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem has long been feared to be a target of global warming. Certainly even now El Nino events can bleach the corals in the Barrier Reef as well as round the world. When water temperatures become too high coral expel their symbiotic zooxanthellae and die – taking on a white ghostly appearance. Certainly water temperature increases in the lower reef around Heron Island are causing impacts already as the frequency of increased water temperatures increases. In a double whammy the water chemistry of the reef may become more acidic from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. This threatens the coral’s ability to secrete exoskeletons and grow. Can coral’s learn to adapt to these new conditions? Certainly experience on other reef systems suggests that coral can expel heat sensitive algae and replace them with heat tolerant strains. But how many species can do this is unknown. Unfortunately a certain amount of warming of the oceans may already be locked in and there will be a steady increase in temperature of the oceans over the next few decades. Certainly there is a lot at stake from an ecological and economic viewpoint.

The other great tourism business in Australia is the skiing industry. The industry is steadily investing in snow making equipment. Maybe it really needs to. Global warming creates a range of basic problems for Australia’s 11,500 square kilometre alpine region, a tiny 0.15 per cent of the continent. The most obvious effect of rising temperatures is snow that melts more quickly, is spread thinner, and a snow line that moves higher up the mountain. A complication is rainfall. Under climate change, the winter rain systems are expected to lessen so the chance of snow – even if it is cold enough – drops off. There may be some solace as storms increase, bearing the chance of a big snow dump.

Modelling for 2020 and 2050 shows that the resort with the most remaining snow will be Perisher, in NSW, followed in order by Falls Creek, Mount Hotham, Thredbo and Mount Buller. The smaller resorts of Mount Buffalo, Mount Baw Baw and Lake Mountain become marginal for skiing at 2020, even in the most optimistic scenarios. A report for the Australian Greenhouse Office says further global warming will reduce biodiversity and seriously decrease populations of endemic species. The loss, the report says, will be very significant at a regional, national and international scientific level.

Henrik Wahren, one of Australia’s leading alpine ecologists, says the alpine environment could disappear by 2050: “We won’t have an alpine area. It will be gone.” Once a plant species is lost, he says, there’s a cascading effect that flows to insects, birds and animals.
The region clearly has to adapt – selling itself as an alternative to crowded beach resorts may be one such option. Tree change instead of sea change.

End of summary.

I would have thought there might be some winners as well as losers out of climate change – that it is not universally all bad. Indeed I have previously commented that warm weather favors coral reefs but not polar bears, click here. But it seems the conference and The Age had a single message: “We’ll all be rooned”.

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Many thanks to the reader who sent in the long summary – who wishes to remain anonymous.

I would be keen to post a piece that outlined the potential upside of global warming. Any offers?