Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for February 2008

New Paper Reviews the Evidence for a Cosmic Ray-Climate Connection

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A new paper is currently in press in the journal Comptes Rendus Geoscience, which reviews the evidence for a connection between Cosmic Rays and Climate.

The invited review authored by Ilya G. Usoskin and Gennady A. Kovaltsov is entitled: ‘Cosmic rays and climate of the Earth: possible connection’ is available via Ilya Usoskin’s personal website for free download (as a corrected proof).

The Abstract states:

Despite much evidence relating climatic changes on Earth to solar variability, a physical mechanism responsible for this is still poorly known. A possible link connecting solar activity and climate variations is related to cosmic rays and the physical-chemical changes they produce in the atmosphere. Here we review experimental evidence and theoretical grounds for this rela tion. The cosmic ray – climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver which effectively operates on different time scales, but its exact mechanism and relative importance still remain open questions.

The paper concludes:

We have reviewed the experimental evidence and theoretical models relating cosmic ray variations to the terrestrial climate changes.

On short time scale of a few days, there exists much evidence that CR changes may affect the process of cyclogenesis via the changing transparency and pressure, particularly in the North Atlantic during cold seasons. Although each individual piece of evidence is barely significant, in aggregate, they suggest that the relation can be real.

A link between low clouds and CR appears statistically significant on the inter-annual time scale since 1984 in limited geographical regions, the largest being North Atlantic + Europe and South Atlantic. We note that many reconstructions of the past climate are based on European data, where the CR-cloud relation is the most pronounced. Extension of this relation to the global scale may be misleading.

A relation between the geomagnetic field changes and climatic variations provides evidence favoring the possible CR influence on climate. A study of regional climate variations in relation to the geomagnetic dipole axis migration over the last millennium is also promising.

There is an indication of the climate changes synchronously with the CR flux on Mega-yr time scales, but this result is not straightforward to interpret. Large uncertainties make it only indicative.

Essential progress has been recently achieved in theoretical modelling of both ionizing effect of CR and physical mechanisms relating CRII to cloud variations, but the link between micro- and macro-physics is still missing. A new experimental evidence, obtained by the SKYexperiment team, confirm that enhanced ionization notably facilitates the production of small ion clusters in realistic atmospheric conditions.

In conclusion, a CR-climate link seems to be a plausible climate driver, as supported by the bulk of statistical studies and existing theoretical models. However, further studies, in particular a clear case study as well as improved model development, are foreseen to improve our understanding of the link between cosmic rays and the climate on Earth.

Beyond Media Headlines: The Key Issues for the Macquarie Marshes

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Media reports yesterday** correctly drew attention to the fact that there are levy banks within the Macquarie Marshes and that they are depriving key wetland areas of water.

But the stories went on to lump upstream legal and planned irrigation development that makes allocations for environmental flows with legal and illegal levies on grazing land within the marshes. Some levies within the marshes are currently blocking designated environmental flow water from reaching the northern nature reserve.

Some of the media reports suggest a need for more studies, but the solution may simply be to bulldoze levies so that environmental flow can get through to the nature reserve.

Other issues within the marshes that require action, rather than more studies include:
1. Preventing the trampling of bird nesting sites by cattle, and
2. Addressing the general issues of overgrazing.

The Macquarie Marshes is a large non-termial wetland in central western New South Wales covering about 200,000 hectares. Most of this area (88 percent) is privately owned and grazed. There are two publicly-owned nature reserves where cattle are excluded and which are Ramsar-listed, meaning they are considered of international importance for migratory bird species.

The most definitive recent publication on the ecology of the Macquarie Marshes is:

The Macquarie Marshes: An Ecological History
by Gillian Hogendyk
IPA Occasional Papers
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=683

You can see pictures of overgrazing at this blog post:

Cattle killing the Macquarie Marshes, 21October 2005
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000949.html

There are pictures of the illegal levies here:

More Water Won’t Save the Macquarie Marshes, 28 March 2006
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001282.html

And for more discussion read:

Three Pressing Issues for the Macquarie Marshes, 13 July 2006
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001481.html

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** Yesterday’s stories include:

Report reveals illegal Murray-Darling irrigation. By environment reporter Sarah Clarke
Scientists say the flood plains are being sucked dry and there is no legislation in place to stop further development.
A new report has exposed major flaws in the management of key rivers and flood plains along the Murray Darling Basin. Satellite images of a key wetland in north-western New South Wales reveal more than 2,000 kilometres of earthworks have carved up the waterway. While some of the channels and levees may have been authorised, others are considered illegal and are diverting water into irrigation and farming.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171517.htm

NSW vows crackdown on Murray-Darling earthworks
The New South Wales Government says it will crack down on unauthorised earthworks in the Macquarie Marshes in the state’s north-west. A report by the University of NSW found that more than 2,000 kilometres of channels, levees and dams are carving up the Macquarie Marshes and diverting water into irrigation and grazing areas.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171663.htm

Wetlands in a flap after the rains
February 25, 2008
Birds are winning the battle of the marshes, writes Daniel Lewis.
Wading through Monkeygar Swamp, with magpie geese honking in the sky above, even a vicious bite from the odd leech can’t wipe the smile off Ray Jones’s face.
There’s enough water for significant bird breeding in his beloved Macquarie Marshes for the first time since 2000, and the National Parks field officer is on a high after depressingly dry years.
“When you see these geese taking off you can’t help but smile,” Jones says. A fellow parks employee recently told him: “This is the first time I have seen you smiling for years.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/wetlands-in-a-flap-after-the-rains/2008/02/24/1203788147733.html

‘Water theft’ threatens Murray-Darling
By DANIEL LEWIS & MARIAN WILKINSON – Australia
Monday, 25 February 2008
A MAZE of levee banks, channels and dams is stealing water from the state’s flood plains and threaten to undermine the $10 billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
A year-long study by a leading wetlands expert also says environmental water stolen on the flood plain that is home to the iconic Macquarie Marshes has already caused enormous environmental damage.
The report says inappropriate development has continued for decades…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/river-rescue-under-threat/2008/02/24/1203788147679.html

Flood plain development ‘stealing water’
February 25, 2008 – 6:35AM
Levee banks, channels and dams are stealing water from NSW flood plains and threatening to undermine the $10-billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
The authors of a report on flood plain development on the lower Macquarie River say state and federal governments have turned a blind eye to water theft through flood plain harvesting, Fairfax reported on Monday.
http://news.smh.com.au/flood-plain-development-stealing-water/20080225-1ugc.html

‘Water theft’ threatens Murray-Darling
By DANIEL LEWIS & MARIAN WILKINSON – Australia
Monday, 25 February 2008
A maze of levee banks, channels and dams is stealing water from NSW’s flood plains and threaten to undermine the $10 billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
A year-long study by a leading wetlands expert also says environmental water stolen on the flood plain that is home to the iconic Macquarie Marshes has already caused enormous environmental damage.
…. SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=48948

Plane Stupidity and BoM Bombs

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Yesterday (Monday 25th February) four Greenpeace protesters breached security at London’s Heathrow airport and climbed on the tail of a Boeing 777 in order to display a banner saying, ‘Climate Emergency, No 3rd Runway.’

Prometheus points out in an article entitled, ‘A sense of proportion’ that last month the Chinese government announced plans to build 97 new airports in the next 12 years. Furthermore, on Saturday China announced plans to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand.

So why can’t Heathrow have a much needed 3rd runway and what difference would it make to climate anyway? Not much point asking Greenpeace unless you want a silly answer devoid of facts.

Meanwhile back in Oz, The Australian carries a story today containing the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) explanation for cooler February temperatures across most of Australia straight after record hot temperatures in January. Another one of those ‘climate experts’ is qouted as saying, “It’s just year-to-year variability. Underneath that variability is this insidious slow warming, which is the greenhouse effect, but it’s not big enough to stop natural variability, and it’s going to take a long time before it is.”

Read the entire article entitled, ‘Natural changes blow hot and cold.’

Porsche Challenge London CO2 Tax with a Judicial Review

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Porsche GB has announced it will seek a judicial review of London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s £25 ‘Congestion’ charge for cars emitting 225g/km or more of CO2, on the grounds that it is unfair, disproportionate and will not cut either congestion or emissions. A motor manufacturer has at last found the guts to stand up for itself against a deeply flawed ‘environmental’ policy.

Porsche have set up a judicial review website here.

Our Case:

London Mayor Ken Livingstone is planning to raise the congestion charge from just £8.00 a day to £25.00 for some vehicles from October, and remove the exemption for residents, meaning that some people will see their daily charge rise from just 80p a day to £25.00 a day.

The new rules will affect several hundred models and many makes of car – 33,000 cars daily in total. This includes many larger family cars such as larger people carriers.

Porsche believes this will be bad for London and intends to take legal action in the form of a Judicial Review to stop this. This is yet another tax on London and the motorist.

It is a disproportionately large, unfair increase.

• The over 200 per cent increase for non-residents is disproportionately large- it is a huge jump in one go that looks more like a political stunt to raise revenue for an inefficient system than considered action.

• The jump for people who actually live in the congestion zone is even higher. People who currently pay just 80p a day will now have to pay £25.00 a day – a massive and unexpected increase of over 3000 percent.

• This increase will hit a large proportion of families that drive people carriers – the sort of people who use one large car, rather than driving a series of smaller one

• It will cost nearly £6,000 per year for those people, whether resident or not, to drive in London every day. This is a massive additional cost that people would not have known they were going to have to face when they bought their car.

• Motorists in Britain already pay very high levels of fuel tax and road tax.
This is yet a further increase which will squeeze them even further.

It won’t benefit the environment.

• Despite Livingstone’s claims, the increased charge won’t make any meaningful difference to the environment. The CO2 saved in a whole year is the equivalent, at most, to just a few hours of emissions from Heathrow Airport.

• It risks just putting more cars on the road as families move from one large car to two or more smaller ones.

• The increased charge will not be dependent on actual usage. A person driving a few hundred yards in one of the affected cars would have to pay £25.00 a day, whilst someone driving a slightly smaller car all day long would get away with paying just £8.00, or just 80p if they are a resident.

It sends out the wrong message about London as a place to do business.

• When London is competing to become the world’s leading business centre, it sends out completely the wrong message and will make successful people look at other cities to locate.

• The increase will hit large numbers of ordinary small business people who also use their vehicles for work.

• It comes at a time when people are already concerned about the state of the economy and when business centres should be doing all they can to secure their position.

Porsche has written to the Mayor requesting that he review his plans to increase the congestion charge to £25.00 for some vehicles. If he refuses to think more about the plans, Porsche will formally apply to the High Court for a Judicial Review. Porsche is not prepared to sit by and watch a world class city indiscriminately damaged.

ENDS

Porsche seem to be unaware of just how unfair and disproportionate the new tax is. The Stern report, commissioned by the Government, suggested that £44 per tonne is an appropriate level of taxation for CO2 emissions.

Motorists already pay over £240 per tonne of CO2 emitted – FIVE TIMES the level of the Stern recommendations – in fuel duty.

Ken Livingstone is going to charge those who live within the zone 3500 TIMES the amount of tax that Stern suggests is reasonable if they choose to own a car that creeps over the arbitrary thresholds for emissions.

Insult is added to injury when you realize that buyers of some brand new £40,000+ 4x4s won’t have to pay the £25 whilst some VW Beetle owners will.

London Taxis tend to be automatics, which all emit well over 225g/km and they don’t have to pay the charge at all!

Notes:

£25 less 80p is £24.20 extra a day for a resident of the central zone for driving a car with “Band G” emissions (over 225 g/km).

The new BMW X5 3.0D will emit 213 g/km (Autocar report), whereas a 2003 VW Beetle Auto produces 228g/km (SMMT website) — 15 g/km more.

Based on 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, the brand new BMW X5 owning resident will pay £208 per year to drive in London. The owner of a £4000 secondhand VW Beetle Auto will have to pay £6500 — over THIRTY times as much.

If they both do 10km a day inside the zone, the VW Beetle owner will have to pay £161,333 for every extra tonne of CO2 he emits over and above the X5 driver. 228-213=15g/km =150g for 10km = .00015 tonnes. £24.20/.00015 equals £161.333.

The Stern report suggested that £44 per tonne was the justifiable level of taxation to cover the alleged “damage” from carbon dioxide. The VW Beetle owner is therefore paying 3666 times this amount for his extra emissions over and above a BMW X5.

Newer versions of the VW Beetle all emit under 225 g/km

LTI TXII Auto taxi — emission rated at 243 g/km on www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk

West Antarctic Glaciers Surging Faster – Not Blamed on Global Warming

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British explorers in West Antarctica reported glacier movement in the region has picked up by a startling seven percent this season, a development, they said, which could lead to a significant rise in sea level.

The biggest of the glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier, is causing the most concern.

The reason does not seem to be warming in the surrounding air.

One possible culprit could be a deep ocean current that is channelled onto the continental shelf close to the mouth of the glacier. There is not much sea ice to protect it from the warm water, which seems to be undercutting the ice and lubricating its flow

Julian Scott, however, thinks there may be other forces at work as well.

Much higher up the course of the glacier there is evidence of a volcano that erupted through the ice about 2,000 years ago and the whole region could be volcanically active, releasing geothermal heat to melt the base of the ice and help its slide towards the sea.

Read more on the BBC website: ‘Antarctic glaciers surge to ocean’

Plotting Carbon Dioxide Mostly For Fun: Jan Pompe

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Hi Jennifer,

Following on from the discussion at ‘Carbon Dioxide versus Temperature’ I have done two plots first is the normalises annual mean CO2 growth rate with annual fossil fuel usage the second is normalised CO2 mean growth rate compared with sea surface mean temperature anomalies.

First FYI the provenance of the data in some the actual data is ftp and current that causes safari to crash the links to actual data are in the page.

For fossil fuel usage: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.htm

For mean annual growth rate of CO2: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

For mean annual sea surface temperature: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow

Jan Pompe_co2 and fossil fuel.gif

The covariance for this is .63. The motivation for comparing annual growth rate with usage is that if there is a relationship the difference if any will be due to what is actually put into the atmosphere this assumes (quite wrongly of course) that all the other sources and sinks are inactive. So the caveat here is there will be much more actually influencing CO2 concentrations and the correlation could well be meaningless or due to common factors if there is indeed a link. Bottom line is that apart from the general trend (which leads to the relatively high covariance) the growth rate varies much more than growth in usage and the CO2 peaks and troughs don’t match and I expect that if the data is detrended the covariance will be much smaller. I don’t have time to check this as I have to finish packing and putting stuff out for council clean up.

Jan Pompe_co2 and temp2.gif

This has a better covariance of .73 (correlation is the same) but as I suspected we don’t see any lag. This is because there is a single data point at each year for each series and any lag less than year is likely to be completely obliterated. Since the CO2 levels have an annual cycle superimposed on the long term trend any such lag will be buried in the “noise”. However we do have a physical (chemical) link with partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 and concentration in solution that is also temperature sensitive this needs more work than I have time for at the moment. There is however this http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html . Where he plots concentration versus temperature difference from the vostok ice core, below I plot temperature versus concentration difference which is better I don’t know yet and I did it this way because that’s the way I had the data loaded I’ll look more closely when I get back [from Bellengen].

Jan Pompe_co2 verus temp.gif

Looks similar to Jeffry Glasman’s maybe it makes no difference but I’ll have to convince my self of that on.

Cheers,
Jan Pompe