Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 2006

Is there a Cosmic Ray – Global Warming Link?

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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?

It Matters That Journalists Keep Getting It Wrong

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There has been some suggestion that in my recent blog post on a dead possum I was too hard on the ABC. Gavin and others have suggested there are bigger issues and that it doesn’t matter that sometimes some journalists get it wrong.

I disagree.

It’s my experience that it is common practice for many environmental reporters to just repeat the content of media releases and briefings from activists, particularly when the perceived villain is a miner, logger or irrigator. The story is set up for them … and they run with it.

Indeed I see significant problems with how the mainstream media reports on environmental issues and I believe there is a need for much more accountability.

I’m not sure we can properly address the many pressing environmental issues out there if journalists keep responding to activist campaigning rather than making their own minds up about what does and doesn’t need to be reported.

Then there is the human dimension of the misreporting.

There is a guy, Richard Ness, who sometimes reads this blog, and who is currently on trial in Indonesia probably because some local environmental activists thought they could create the perception of an environmental disaster. They probably assumed, given the way the media tends to work when it comes to environmental issue, that their fabrication would quickly become a news story. All they had to do was grab a few props (in this case babies with skin problems) and make a few accusations.

Indeed while the evidence doesn’t stack up, BBC Online continues to report the story including more comment from the activists who should by now be dismissed as scoundrels. Meanwhile, Richard Ness faces the prospect of 10 years in jail for something that never happened.

Pulp Mill To Reduce Rainfall?

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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:

BOM%20jan97-06%20rainfall%20deciles%20blog.jpg

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 https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/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

Keeping Wildlife In the Freezer

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When I worked for the sugar industry, there was a guy who lived in Ingham, in Far North Queensland, who used to regularly pull the same fish out of the freezer when there was a fish kill and get it on television as an example of poisoning from acid sulfate soils.

It seems activists also keep wildlife in their freezers in Tasmania and have no worries pulling a possum killed by a motorcar out of the freezer and parading it as an example of 1080 poisoning. At least that’s the message we get from Pier Akerman writing in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday in a piece entitled ‘Hello, wasn’t that the ex-possum again?’.

While some activists have no real interest in the truth, just a particular barrow to push, you would like to think journalists from the Australian national broadcaster, the ABC, were a bit more diligent. But it seems they don’t even have a particularly good system for keeping track of file tape/news footage… click here.

The Montreal Protocol Hasn’t Stopped Ozone Depletion

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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?

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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.

R U Flying: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 4)

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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.

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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: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001641.html .