Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 2007

Fashion – Another Victim of Global Warming

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John Brignell of Number Watch has a comprehensive list of everything that has been attributed to global warming here.

An recent article from The Age adds fashion to the list:

Fashion warms to reality of climate change

LEADING international fashion designers and industry experts say unpredictable and typically warmer weather worldwide is wreaking havoc on the industry.

It is forcing fashion houses to ditch traditional seasonal collections for transeasonal garments that may lead to a drastic overhaul of fashion show schedules and retail delivery dates…………….

Australian Paleoclimatologist Warns of a New Ice Age

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From ABC News:

New northern ice age could send refugees to Aust

A new study from the Australian National University (ANU) has found that this country may not be as severely affected by a new ice age as countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

ANU paleoclimatologist Timothy Barrows and his fellow researchers used a new dating technique that measures the radioactive elements in some rocks.

Dr Barrows explains that Europe is at risk of a new ice age as a result of global warming.

“There are some fears that warming in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly around the Greenland ice sheet, might cause quite a bit of meltwater to come into the North Atlantic Ocean,” he said.

Read the whole article.

ENSO and The Great Pacific Climate Shift – The Relationship to Temperatures and Arctic Ice

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Excellent piece here from John McLean entitled ‘Ignoring a Natural Event to Blame Humans.’

In the last week of September 2007 we had yet another example of a well-recognized natural climate event being ignored in order to sell the notion that mankind is responsible for global warming. Maybe it was deliberate or maybe just ignorance, but you’d think that capable scientists would look closely at prior research and the data and not just be activists for their latest cause.

This time it was Power and Smith, from Australia’s CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology respectively, who were reporting a weakened Walker Circulation over the last 30 years and a concurrent period of unprecedented El Niño dominance [note 1], both of which they blamed on human activity.

Last year in May it was Vecchi et al [2] who told us that the same Walker Circulation had weakened by 3.5% since the mid-1800s and there that there was a just 1% probability that this was due to natural events. Vecchi and Soden [3] recently continued their line of argument from 2006 by claiming that an ensemble of 23 climate models confirms that weakening of the Walker Circulation is to be expected under anthropogenic warming.

These three papers seem to be the product of researchers lost in their computer simulations and putting the virtual reality of computer models ahead of observational reality.

What they attribute to human activity are natural events that have been well described by other researchers.

Read the full article.

There is also a follow up article by Joseph D’Aleo enitled ‘More on The Great Pacific Climate Shift and the Relationship of Oceans to Temperatures and Arctic Ice’

In a recent guest blog, John McLean explained how Australia’s CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology (Power and Smith) respectively were reporting a period of unprecedented El Niño dominance the last 30 years, which they blamed on human activity. Last year in May it was Vecchi who told us there was a just 1% probability that this was due to natural events.

On The Weather Channel blogs, meteorologist Stu Ostro, also found a similar continuity shift in weather pattern starting 30 years ago. Blog comments back to Stu and John McLean’s blog here showed how the change had precious little to do with anthropogenic factors but was a large scale cyclical climate shift known for decades as the Great Pacific Climate Shift.

Later on it was shown to be the latest change in a cyclical regime change given the name Pacific Decadal Oscillation by Mantua et al. This followed research showing decadal like ENSO variability by Zhang et al. in 1993.
They found the Pacific Ocean temperature regime and overlying pressure patterns tended to persist in one mode for two or three decades and then flip to very nearly the opposite mode for a similar period.

Read more.

3 relevant papers:

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L06712, doi:10.1029/2005GL025052, 2006

Long-term behaviour of ENSO: Interactions with the PDO over the past 400 years inferred from paleoclimate records

Danielle C. Verdon1 and Stewart W. Franks1

[1] This study uses proxy climate records derived from paleoclimate data to investigate the long-term behaviour of
the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Nin˜o Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the past 400 years,
climate shifts associated with changes in the PDO are shown to have occurred with a similar frequency to those
documented in the 20th Century. Importantly, phase changes in the PDO have a propensity to coincide with
changes in the relative frequency of ENSO events, where the positive phase of the PDO is associated with an
enhanced frequency of El Nin˜o events, while the negative phase is shown to be more favourable for the development of La Nin˜a events.

HYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES INVITED COMMENTARY Hydrol. Process. 16, 559–564 (2002) DOI: 10.1002/hyp.600

Assessing hydrological change: deterministic general circulation models or spurious solar correlation?

Stewart W. Franks Centre for Environmental Dynamics, University of Newcastle, Callaghan 2308, New South Wales, Australia

Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are at an historic high, and this must lead to strong concerns over our future climate. However, it is not often appreciated that solar activity is also at an historic high [from 400 years of solar observations (Hoyt and Schatten, 1997)]. The problem of disaggregating these factors in temperature trends is largely due to long-term upward trends of both factors. However, through the use of a simple non-linear ARX[1] model, it has been shown that temperature trends over the 20th century display some coherence with solar irradiance. It should therefore be considered that documented hydrological changes in regional climates, available via the IPO/PDO indices, may be driven by solar–terrestrial interactions. Until GCMs can elucidate the mechanisms of hydrological variability, then any projections of long-term future climate changes must be viewed with obvious caution.

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 30, NO. 2, 1035, doi:10.1029/2002GL015992, 2003

Multi-decadal variability of flood risk

Anthony S. Kiem, Stewart W. Franks, and George Kuczera School of Engineering, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia

[1] Recent research has highlighted the persistence of multi-decadal epochs of enhanced/reduced flood risk across
New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Recent climatological studies have also revealed multi-decadal variability in the
modulation of the magnitude of El Nin˜o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impacts. In this paper, the variability of flood risk
across NSW is analysed with respect to the observed modulation of ENSO event magnitude. This is achieved
through the use of a simple index of regional flood risk. The results indicate that cold ENSO events (La Nin˜a) are the
dominant drivers of elevated flood risk. An analysis of multidecadal modulation of flood risk is achieved using the interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) index. The analysis reveals that IPO modulation of ENSO events leads to multi-decadal epochs of elevated flood risk, however this modulation appears to affect not only the magnitude of individual ENSO events, but also the frequency of their occurrence. This dual modulation of ENSO processes has the effect of reducing and elevating flood risk on multi-decadal timescales. These results have marked implications for achieving robust flood frequency analysis as well as providing a strong example of the role of natural climate variability.

Pulp Mill Gets Australian Government Approval with More Conditions: A Note from Malcolm Turnbull

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Dear Jennifer,

Last week I imposed the world’s most stringent environmental conditions on the Tamar Valley pulp mill project [in Tasmania]. My decision was based solely on science and implemented the recommendations of the Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Jim Peacock who had reported on all of the scientific issues which fell under my jurisdiction.

Critics of the mill have claimed that I should have investigated and imposed conditions on matters outside the Commonwealth’s environmental jurisdiction.

They overlook the fact that I have to act within the law and as I have set at greater length on my website the Commonwealth’s environmental jurisdiction is limited to categories detailed in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

See below for a summary of the decision. Click here for the media release and links to the complete documentation.

Given the extraordinary degree of misinformation about this matter, I would like to set down a few facts about the mill.

The mill will not process any timber from old growth forests. The timber sources will come exclusively from plantation timber and regrowth forests, ie areas which have previously been logged and have regenerated. Within five years it is expected the mill will be using 80% timber from plantations. All timber sourced is covered by the Tasmanian Regional Forestry Agreement which mandates sustainable forestry practices.

There will be no additional logging needed to support the mill. The economics of the mill are based on adding value to woodchips which would otherwise be exported to overseas pulp mills (all of which would have less stringent environmental conditions than those I have imposed on the Tamar Valley pulp mill.)

The site of the pulp mill is not in a pristine wilderness, but in a precinct zoned “heavy industrial” which includes the Comalco aluminium smelter that has been operating there since 1955 as well as a power station and other industrial operations. Check it out on Google Earth if you don’t have time to visit.

The pulp mill will not add 2% to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian Greenhouse Office advises that because the mill will use renewable wood waste for energy it is likely to be either carbon neutral or have a low emission profile compared with the “business as usual” base case of woodchip production and export to pulp mills overseas. Remember power stations fuelled with renewable fuels (biomass) qualify under the MRET scheme in many circumstances. That is why ethanol and bio-diesel are regarded as green fuels.

As you know, I resolved back in August that I would refer the scientific issues central to my assessment of the proposal to the Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Jim Peacock, who assembled a panel of scientists toadvise him, each of them an expert in the relevant fields.

The Chief Scientist presented me with his report last week and I have made a decision to approve the mill which, consistent with the recommendations of Dr Peacock, imposes the world’s toughest environmental safeguards.

In August, the draft recommendations of my Department proposed 24 conditions be imposed on the proposed pulp mill. The number of conditions has now doubled to 48. The conditions I have imposed are the toughest to be placed on any mill of this type in the world. My decision was based on a rigorous, accountable and transparent assessment process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

My decision, consistent with Dr Peacock’s recommendations, includes:

1. 16 conditions relating to the management of effluent from the pulp mill, including stringent levels which if exceeded will mean the mill must close until such time as an advanced (tertiary) effluent treatment process that produces high quality water is put in place.

2. maximum dioxin levels in the effluent discharged from the mill will be almost four times more stringent than world’s best practice and trigger levels (which will require immediate remedial action) will be more than six times more stringent.

3. the establishment of an Independent Expert Group, appointed by the Minister and drawn from leading national and international scientists to assist with the design, implementation, monitoring and approval of the pulp mill.

4. a requirement that Gunns prepare for the Minister’s approval an integrated Environmental Impact Management Plan, in consultation with the Independent Expert Group, to ensure no adverse impacts on Commonwealth environment matters. Some elements of the plan will be required to be approved before any construction begins and the final plan requires approval before the mill is commissioned.

5. the appointment by the Minister of an Independent Site Supervisor to monitor Gunns’ compliance with the conditions. The Independent Site Supervisor will have the full range of powers as an inspector under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to ensure there are no impediments in terms of access to information or locations to the performance as supervisor.

6. 17 conditions relating to the protection of both listed threatened and migratory species, including measures to protect the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, the Tasmanian Devil, fur seals, whales, dolphins and rare native vegetation.

7. requirements for around 400 hectares of protected reserve to be set aside for protected plants and animals.

8. a requirement for transparent and regular reporting by Gunns of compliance with the conditions, to be independently audited by an auditor agreed to by the Department. This report must be also be made available to the public.

My decision was based on the advice of the Chief Scientist, comprehensive advice from my Department, and over 36,000 public submissions received during the assessment process. To ensure as much transparency and accountability as possible in the decision-making process, I included three periods of public comment over the five month since the assessment commenced in April 2007.

The Australian Government’s assessment of the mill was restricted to a set of defined environmental matters, namely the marine environment under Commonwealth jurisdiction, and threatened and migratory species.

As has consistently been the case throughout this assessment, the majority of public concerns relate to issues beyond the Australian Government’s legal powers. The Tasmanian Government is responsible for many of the issues surrounding the pulp mill. These include emissions of odours, local air quality and impacts on Tasmanian waters. I should note the stringent conditions on effluent composition that I have imposed (in order to protect Commonwealth waters) will confer added protection to the marine environment within Tasmanian jurisdiction. .

Wood supply issues are not subject to assessment under the EPBC Act so long as the wood supply, as is the case here, is covered by a Regional Forestry Agreement.

I have been very critical of the Tasmanian assessment process. The decision of the Lennon Government to abandon the assessment by the RPDC unfortunately undermined the trust of the people of Tasmania. The RPDC was, as is the usual practice, considering both State and Commonwealth environmental issues in a bilateral process. When Mr Lennon abandoned that process, I had no choice but to consider the Commonwealth issues myself and I have run a transparent and consultative Commonwealth assessment. The outcome of that process ensures that the pulp mill meets world’s best practice in those areas protected under Commonwealth environment law.

Please visit my Department’s website for more information on my decision, the conditions and a copy of the Chief Scientist’s report.

Yours sincerely
Malcolm Turnbull
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources

1967, Dogs, and Rare Droughts

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Thanks to Luke Walker for blog post title and The Sydney Mornig Herald article:

Three-headed dog cruels spring hopes

DROUGHT-STRICKEN farmers could face spring rainfall that is up to 40 per cent below average because of a rare weather pattern last seen 40 years ago.

A CSIRO scientist, Wenju Cai, told the Greenhouse 2007 conference in Sydney yesterday that Australia was experiencing an unusual combination of two events: a La Nina phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean in the east, and an Indian Ocean Dipole phenomenon in the west.

“The only time in [recorded] history we had this kind of combination was in 1967,” he said.

In that year, spring was extremely dry in the south and east of the country, and this could provide an indication of what was ahead in the next few months, he said.

Although La Nina usually brings more rainfall to eastern Australia, it appeared to have been overwhelmed in 1967 by the positive Indian Ocean Dipole, which reduces rainfall across Australia, including in the south-east.

Dr Cai said that, overall, the projection in coming decades was for reduced rainfall in winter and spring in southern Australia, with a decline of up to 15 per cent by 2070.

“There is no longer any doubt that climate change caused by increases in greenhouse gases is influencing seasonal shifts in rainfall patterns,” he said…………..

Dr Cai said that three major phenomena, which he likened to a “three-headed dog”, influenced Australia’s rainfall: El Nino events, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the Southern Annular Mode, a weather pattern in the Southern Ocean that promotes airflow towards south east Australia.

The good news was that the dog had “a tail”, which may be able to partially offset some drying. This was rapidly heating waters in the Tasman Sea, which research suggested could lead to an increase in rainfall in the south-east during summers.

Dr Cai said that greenhouse gas emissions accounted for about half the rainfall reduction in the south west of the country, where there has been a 10 per cent decline since the early 1970s.

Separate research on an Antarctic ice core suggests this drying may represent a very unusual event.

Tas van Ommen, of the Australian Antarctic Division, told the conference his team had identified a link between rainfall in the south-west and snowfall at a site called Law Dome in East Antarctica.

Their study of an ice core from Law Dome that covers the past 750 years suggests that the last 30 years in south-west Australia has been the driest period, and longest period of reduced rainfall, since the year 1250.

“So media suggestions that the drought in Australia is a 1-in-1000-year event is not unreasonable, at least for the south-west,” Dr van Ommen said.

El Niño returns: Southern Africa droughts in 2007

afrol News 6 October – Satellite photos of the Pacific reveal the return of a world-wide weather phenomenon, the so-called “El Niño”. For Southern Africa, the phenomenon always has spelled severe drought and famine. Scientists expect the Niño to strike already in 2007. The 1991-92 El Niño brought the worst drought in southern Africa during the 20th century.

The US space agency NASA today reported that it has detected a “weak El Niño” returning to the Pacific Ocean, the first since the dramatic climatic season of 1997-98. NASA’s Aqua and Jason satellites have measured increasing ocean surface temperatures in belts across the middle and eastern Pacific, which are signs of a major transformation of global weather systems.

Every few years, such unusually warm currents flow off the western coast of South America. Its appearance after Christmas lead sailors in Peru to christen it El Niño, the Christ-child in Spanish. Like a child, it is sometimes unpredictable, and sometimes creates havoc. In El Niño’s case, it brings natural disasters such as storms, floods and droughts and famine in far-flung parts of the world.

El Niño events occur irregularly, about every 2-7 years and they last from 12 to 18 months, according to the World Health Organisations (WHO), which is very conscious about its many health risks around the world.

Southern Africa is known to be one of the regions world-wide to be most strongly impacted by an El Niño period, together with parts of South America and South-East Asia. In Southern Africa, it is followed by severe droughts almost every time it occurs. “The 1991-92 El Niño brought the worst drought in southern Africa [the 20th] century, which affected nearly 100 million people,” according to WHO.

The 1997-8 El Niño – the last until now – also caused drought in Southern Africa. Its effects were however strongest in Australia – which experienced its worst drought in decades – and in South-East Asia. Throughout the Americas, devastating floods caused great material damage……..

A Couple of Papers from JQS

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Below are a couple of papers from the latest edition of the Journal of Quaternary Science examining a possible solar link to climate:

JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2007) 22(7) 659–665

Climatic change during the last 4000 years in the southern Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, northwest China

WEI ZHONG,1* JI BIN XUE,1 QIANG SHU2 and LI GUO WANG2
1 School of Geography Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, P. R. China
2 School of Resource and Environmental Science, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, P. R. China

ABSTRACT: In this study, a ca. 4000 cal. yr ancient lacustrine (or wetland) sediment record at the southern margin of Tarim Basin is used to reconstruct the history of climate change. Six radiocarbon dates on organic matter were obtained. d18O and d13C of carbonate, pollen and sediment particle size were analysed for climate proxies. The proxies indicate that a drier climate prevailed in the area before ca. 1010 BC and during period 1010 BC–AD 500 climate then changed rapidly and continuously from dry to moist, but after about AD 500 climate generally shows dry condition. Several centennial-scale climatic events were revealed, with the wettest spell during AD 450–550, and a relatively wetter interval between AD 930–1030. Pollen results show that regional climate may influence human agricultural activities. Spectral analysis of mean grain size (MGS) proxy reveals statistically pronounced cyclic signals, such as ca. 200 yr, ca. 120 yr, ca. 90 yr, ca. 45 yr and ca. 33 or 30 yr, which may be associated with solar activities, implying that solar variability plays an important role in the decadal- and centennial-scale climate variations in the study area.

Possible solar forcing of climate in the southern Tarim Basin

Zhong et al. (2004) found that decadal- or centennial-scale climate events indicated by mean grain size (MGS) in the Niya section matches residual D14C variation remarkably well, suggesting a possible common solar forcing as inferred from D14C fluctuation. The humid periods (lower MGS values) inferred from the Niya section correspond to D14C maxima (solar minima) in most cases. Possibly, weaker solar irradiance results in a cold climate, leading to an increase in relative atmospheric humidity in the extreme arid southern Xinjiang. By applying the method of red-noise spectral analysis (REDFIT) for unevenly spaced time series proposed by Schulz and Mudelsee (2002) to deal with MGS proxy records in the Niya River section, we can find several statistically significant cyclic signals of ca. 200 yr, ca. 120 yr, ca. 90 yr, ca. 45 yr and ca. 33 or 30 yr (x2¼99%, Fig. 7). Most of these cycles are related to solar activity, the ca. 200 yr and 97–90 yr cycle are mostly likely to be related to the Suess and Gleissberg cycle respectively. The 33–30 yr cycle is possibly associated with the notable Brueckner cycle (Zhang, 1976).

JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2007) 22(7) 667–679

A multiproxy climate record from a raised bog in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland: a critical examination of the link between bog surface wetness and solar variability

GRAEME T. SWINDLES,* GILL PLUNKETT and HELEN M. ROE
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

ABSTRACT: A proxy climate record from a raised bog in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, is presented. The record spans the interval between 2850 cal. yr BC and cal. yr AD 1000 and chronological control is achieved through the use of tephrochronology and 14C dating, including a wiggle-match on one section of the record. Palaeoclimatic inferences are based on a combination of a testate amoebae-derived water table reconstruction, peat humification and plant macrofossil analyses. This multiproxy approach enables proxy-specific effects to be identified. Major wet shifts are registered in the proxies at ca. 1510 cal. yr BC, 750 cal. yr BC and cal. yr AD 470. Smaller magnitude shifts to wetter conditions are also recorded at ca. 380 cal. yr BC, 150 cal. yr BC, cal. yr AD 180, and cal. yr AD 690. It is hypothesised that the wet shifts are not merely local events as they appear to be linked to wider climate deteriorations in northwest Europe. Harmonic analysis of the proxies illustrates statistically significant periodicities of 580, 423–373, 307 and 265 years that may be related to wider Holocene climate cycles. This paper illustrates how the timing of climate changes registered in peat profiles records can be precisely constrained using tephrochronology to examine possible climatic responses to solar forcing. Relying on interpolated chronologies with considerable dating uncertainty must be avoided if the climatic responses to forcing mechanisms are to be fully understood.

Conclusions

………….Several shifts to wetter conditions are registered in the records, possibly related to wider climatic
deteriorations in northwest Europe. There are also a number of statistically significant periodicities in the record, that may be linked to climate-forcing parameters. The major wet phases generally occur at times of high 14C levels, tentatively suggesting a persistent influence of solar forcing on Holocene climate change. A wet shift at 750 cal. yr BC clearly lags a decrease in solar activity which begins at 850 cal. yr BC, but at other times in this record, the precise timing of wet shifts in relation to solar anomalies remains to be established. This study shows that tephra can be used as an effective alternative to wiggle-match radiocarbon dating to generate high-precision chronologies in order to investigate the solar forced contribution to climate change.