Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 4, 2008

How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones (Part 6)

By

Dr David Jones, the head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, recently attributed a decline in Melbourne’s rainfall to global warming.    Amongst various comments, he claimed in The Age that the autumn drying trend could be linked to either human-induced climate change through greenhouse gases or changes in the ozone layer over Antarctica.  

Ockham’s Razor, the principle proposed by William of Ockham in the fourteenth century: “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate”, which translates as “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” would require that Dr Jones choose one or the other theory, greenhouse gases or depletion of the ozone layer, as an explanation for the decline in rainfall. 

But does either theory really represents much more than speculation? 

Indeed lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledged just after the release of their last big report that  until major oscillations in the Earth System, including El Nino-Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, are better understood regional climate, and in particular regional rainfall,  is a difficult problem.

Furthermore, there are perhaps other simpler explanations for the recent decline in rainfall. 

Indeed Dr Jones recently confirmed that his comments in The Age were based on data from just one weather station:  a site in Melbourne’s central business district.  

This brings us back to Part 1 of this series in which Bill Kininmonth, a meteorologist formerly with the Bureau, made comment that “the rain gauge in Melbourne’s central business district is now sheltered from the rain bearing winds of the southwest”.

How To Censor a Climate Sceptic

By

Dr Roy Spencer is a well known climate sceptic who has published extensively in mainstream peer-reviewed scientific journals and earlier this year had a popular book published entitled ‘Climate Confusion’. 

Yesterday, November 3, 2008, two technical papers that Dr Spencer had recently submitted to the journal Geophysical Research Letters were outright rejected in back-to-back emails and on the same day all 78 reviews of his book on Amazon.com were removed from that website.

November 4, America Votes, Including on Energy

By

The United States presidential election of 2008 is scheduled for today, November 4.  While the campaign was dominated initially by foreign policy and more recently by the financial crisis, there are other issues including energy.    The likely new President, Barack Obama, has promised $150 billion for renewable energy, while Republican hopeful, John McCain, has promised 45 new nuclear power stations and to expand domestic oil and natural gas exploration and production. 

The Obama “New Energy for America” plan also includes: short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump; the creation of five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future; within 10 years save more oil than is currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined; put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars — cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon — on the road by 2015, cars that Obama will work to make sure are built in America; ensure 10 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025; Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

European Union to Ban Lots of Pesticides

By

The European Union (EU) is developing a new ‘Thematic Strategy for Pesticides’ including a proposed new ‘Sustainable Use Directive’.  According to the UK’s Pesticide Safety Directorate the new regulation could outlaw up to 85 percent of pesticides currently used by farmers and render conventional agriculture as it is currently practised unachievable.  Professor Sir Colin Berry, Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary College, University of London,  has described the European Parliament’s document in support of the legislation as “simply an apologia for a position, not a scientific review.”

The proposal will see the EU go from a risk-based assessment of chemicals to a hazard-based one.