Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 30, 2008

Global Warming for Dummies (Part 3)

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The prediction of how much manmade global warming we will see in the future (as well as how much past warming was manmade) depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”.

For many years, climate researchers have struggled to diagnose the Earth’s climate sensitivity from measurements of the real climate system. It’s almost a “holy grail” kind of search, because if we could discover the true value of the climate sensitivity, then we would basically know whether future global warming will be benign, catastrophic, or somewhere in between.

Here I present a new method of satellite data analysis which I believe reveals the climate sensitivity, and I also show why it has been so hard to diagnose from observations.

When the Earth warms, it emits more infrared radiation to outer space. This natural cooling mechanism is the same effect you feel at a distance from a hot stove. The hotter anything gets the more infrared energy it loses to its surroundings.

For the Earth, this natural cooling effect amounts to an average of 3.3 Watts per square meter for every 1 deg C that the Earth warms. There is no scientific disagreement on this value.

Climate sensitivity is how clouds and water vapor will change with warming to make that 3.3 Watts a bigger number (stronger natural cooling, called “negative feedback”), or smaller (weaker natural cooling, called “positive feedback”).

While there are other sources of change in the climate system, cloud and water vapor changes are likely to dominate climate sensitivity. The greater the sensitivity, the more the Earth will warm from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations being produced by humans through the burning of fossil fuels.

There are three possibilities for climate sensitivity:

1. If clouds and water vapor don’t change as we add CO2 to the atmosphere, then the expected warming by 2100 would only be about 1 deg. C, which would not be a very big concern for most people. This is called the “zero-feedback” case.

2. If low clouds decrease, high (cirrus) clouds increase, or water vapor increases, then warming will be magnified. Most, if not all, climate models predict that clouds and water vapor will change like this, resulting in an amplification of the CO2-only warming of 1 deg C to as much as 4.5 deg. C or more. This is called the “positive-feedback” case, and the greater the positive feedback, the greater the warming. (NOTE: If the sum of all positive feedbacks more than cancel out the 3.3 Watt natural cooling, then the climate system is inherently unstable…this is why you sometimes hear of climate change “tipping points”.)

3. If the climate modelers are wrong — and low clouds increase, high clouds decrease or water vapor decreases with warming — then the effect will be to reduce the warming to less than 1 deg. C. For instance, if that 3.3 Watts of natural cooling mentioned earlier increased to as much as 8 Watts from cloud changes, the warming would be reduced to about 0.5 deg C by 2100. This is called the “negative feedback” case.

Read more from Roy Spencer here: http://www.weatherquestions.com/Climate-Sensitivity-Holy-Grail.htm

In this simplied version of a paper entitled ‘Chaotic Radiative Forcing, Feedback Stripes, and the Overestimation of Climate Sensitiviy’ submitted on June 25, 2008 to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Dr Spencer goes on to conclude that:

1. Current satellite estimates of climate sensitivity have a spurious bias in the direction of high sensitivity.

2. This bias is probably due to small, natural fluctuations in cloud cover.

3. The true climate sensitivity only shows up during those shorter periods of time when non-radiative forcing (e.g. evaporation) is causing a relatively large source of temperature variability compared to that from cloud variability.

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Read Global Warming for Dummies Part 1 here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000959.html
And Global Warming for Dummies Part 2 here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/002844.html

The UN IPCC ‘2500 Scientists’ Hoax

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It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over: “2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis.”

But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. Here’s the real situation.

Continue reading ‘The UN climate change numbers hoax’ over at OLO.

Energy Intensive Australian Businesses To Report Emissions from Tomorrow: Media Release from Penny Wong

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From Tuesday (1 July), businesses emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases will be required to monitor and measure the emissions ahead of reporting them to the Government by October next year.

Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, said the requirements were part of Australia’s new National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System.

“The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System will be an important part of our efforts to tackle climate change as we move to establish an emissions trading scheme,” Senator Wong said.

“The emissions trading scheme is at the heart of the Rudd Government’s plan to reduce greenhouse emissions. It is the best way to tackle climate change at lowest cost to families and business.

“This new system will play an important role by more precisely quantifying the greenhouse gases Australia produces. It will also, for the first time, provide robust and comparable information to the public on the greenhouse and energy profiles of Australia’s large corporations.”

From 1 July, corporate groups that emit 125 kilotonnes or more of greenhouse gases each year, or produce or consume 500 terajoules or more of energy, will be required to collect data to meet annual reporting requirements. Corporations controlling facilities that emit more than 25 kilotonnes of greenhouse gases, or use or produce 100 terajoules or more of energy, will also need to collect data.

(25 kilotonnes of greenhouse gas emissions is equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 6,200 cars. 100 terajoules equates to the annual energy use of around 1900 households.)

While the Act governing the system comes into effect on 1 July 2008, relevant corporations will have until 31 August 2009 to apply to register under the scheme, and until 31 October 2009 to submit their first annual greenhouse and energy report.

“Many of these corporations already report their emissions and energy use to meet investor demands under existing programs, or as part of a growing corporate commitment to social responsibility and sustainability,” Senator Wong said.

“But others may be unsure as to whether or not they are covered by the system, and the Department of Climate Change will work closely with them to ensure they can comply.”

The Department of Climate Change has developed an online calculator to help businesses work out whether the system applies to them. The department will continue to run information sessions and provide guidance on using the online reporting system, along with a ‘reporting hotline’.

Daintree Power Struggles

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Daintree Power.jpg

In an ongoing effort to get through to the Queensland Government, our local ratepayers association is considering a full-page advertisement in the environmental liftout of a local newspaper. It would include an open letter to the Premier of Queensland, the Hon. Anna Bligh MP:

Dear Madam Premier,

Residents and business operators within the Daintree rainforest take their custodial responsibilities very seriously; after all, it is also their own futures they are protecting. They possess an extraordinary knowledge of the area’s global environmental significance and understand the importance of
sustaining a world-class ecotourism economy.

Every year, over sixty businesses attempt to showcase their bona fides as environmental custodians to the half-million or so travellers from the world-over, but the all-important partnership between the host community and its ecotourism clientele, is undermined by the disgrace and impropriety of the world’s worst-practice electricity supply; hundreds of concurrently running engine-generators spewing pollutants into the last remnant of the oldest surviving rainforest in the world. It is anathema to the custodial community and travel altruism is understandably incensed. It is also economically crippling, with fuel prices fast approaching $2/litre; a single family’s modest electrical needs may cost around $170/week for the fuel alone to generate electricity through an internal combustion engine.

Any justification for adherence to the existing policy of excision, as a development choke, is redundant, as the Daintree is now more rigorously regulated than probably anywhere else on the planet. The local community calls upon the Queensland Government to embrace a new partnership, that protects, to the greatest possible extent, the exceptional environmental and ecotourism values, including the people and communities, through renewable optimisation, innovation, development and provision of world’s best-practice electricity supply.

Together we can do much better.
Your faithful partners in protection,
etc.,

New Solar Paper Published by Australian Astronomical Society

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A new paper entitled: Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle? by Wilson et al has been published.

The Abstract states:

We present evidence to show that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in its orbital motion about the barycentre of the Solar System. We propose that this synchronization is indicative of a spin–orbit coupling mechanism operating between the Jovian planets and the Sun. However, we are unable to suggest a plausible underlying physical cause for the coupling. Some researchers have proposed that it is the period of the meridional flow in the convective zone of the Sun that controls both the duration and strength of the Solar cycle. We postulate that the overall period of the meridional flow is set by the level of disruption to the flow that is caused by changes in Sun’s equatorial rotation speed. Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn.

Keywords: sun: activity — sun: sunspots — sun: rotation — stars: planetary systems

Andrew Bolt contacted lead author Ian Wilson who told him:

“It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 – 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 – 2 C.”

More on the Barrages Blocking the River Murray

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Let’s be honest: a dry river is not necessarily an environmental catastrophe.

Two weeks ago Australians were warned that a leaked government report claims there is only six months to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

In response, the Federal Opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, called on the Prime Minister, Kelvin Rudd, to make a joint tour of the River Murray’s lower lakes region.

Mr Nelson said he thought it was “very important that the leaders of this nation have a first-hand look at the environmental, economic and human catastrophe which is unfolding in the Lower Murray lakes.”

The leaked report focused on the lower lakes, and as I have previously written (Acid Sulfate Blame Floating Upstream, The Land, May 15, pg 30), a solution to many of the environmental problems at the Murray’s mouth is to simply open the barrages and let the area flood with saltwater.

The barrages were built from the 1920s to keep the Southern Ocean out and to raise the lake level, including for boating.

These same barrages also facilitated the development of irrigated farming in this area, but they are unnatural.

If the barrages were now opened, irrigators dependent on freshwater from the lower lakes would need to be compensated.

But the alternative, continuing to send large quantities of water from the drought-drained reserves in the Hume and Dartmouth dams during this protracted big dry, is less viable.

Some argue that if a permanent weir was constructed just upstream of the lakes at Wellington and the barrages used under “an adaptive management regime”, there could be water savings in the order of 750,000 megalitres a year.

Opening the barrages would take some pressure off the system, because less water would need to be allocated to South Australia, but the river could still run dry.

Indeed, it doesn’t matter how many leaked government reports call for more water for environmental flows, if there’s ongoing drought and the upstream dams runs dry, there will be simply no water for the river.

It would be an economic and human catastrophe for the many towns now dependent on the river for their water supply, but it would not necessarily be a catastrophe for the environment.

The River Murray in its natural state could be reduced to a chain of saline ponds.
Indeed, the idea that a river should be always brimming with freshwater is a very European concept – in reality, alien to a land of drought and flooding rains.

So, let’s be honest, many South Australians want to keep the barrages shut to the Southern Ocean and many Victorians and New South Welshmen want to keep the river full of water – not to save the environment, but to avoid what Mr Nelson has described as a potential economic and social catastrophe.

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This is an edited version of my column published in The Land on Thursday June 26 entitled ‘Barrages Block Sense’.
You can read many of my The Land columns here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/articles.php