Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for April 1, 2009

A Reality Check on the Role of Water Vapour in Climate Change: A Note from Michael Hammer

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ACCORDING to the international panel on climate change (IPCC) any direct temperature rise from increasing carbon dioxide levels is greatly amplified by positive feedback from water vapour. As the theory goes, rising carbon dioxide levels from human activity causes some temperature rise which causes more water to evaporate.  Because water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas, the additional water vapour absorbs even more energy, so global temperatures rise even, more causing still more water to evaporate and so on in an amplifying spiral.  In this way the roughly half degree direct impact from doubling carbon dioxide is claimed to be amplified to three degrees or more.

An interesting theory, but now consider the following scenario;

We know the earth rotates about an axis tilted about 23 degrees relative to the sun.  This is what causes the seasons and what sets the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.  Imagine a location on the Tropic of Capricorn (23 degrees south) – say Mackay in Queensland.  In summer the sun is directly overhead – average solar input of around 310 watts/sq meter.  In winter the sun is at maximum elevation 44 degrees – average solar input of around 220 watts/sq meter.  That is a difference summer to winter of about 90 watts/sq meter which, according to Stefan’s law, without any feedbacks would give a temperature difference summer to winter of about 16 degrees.  The amount of positive or amplifying feedback claimed by the IPCC would inflate that about 6 times to more than 90 degrees C, extinguishing all life in Mackay.

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Native Ants Kill Cane Toads

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ECOLOGISTS in Australia have discovered that cane toads are susceptible to being killed and eaten by meat ants – and much more susceptible to the ants than are native Australian frogs.

They claim that their research – published in the British Ecological Society’s journal Functional Ecology – reveals a “chink in the cane toad’s armour” that could help control the spread of this alien invasive species in tropical Australia.

Professor Rick Shine and his colleagues Georgia Ward-Fear, Matt Greenlees and Greg Brown from the University of Sydney’s Team Bufo (from the Latin name for the toxic toad) compared habitat use and activity patterns in meat ants, metamorph cane toads and seven native Australian frog species. They found that, unlike the native frogs, cane toads are poorly equipped to escape the meat ants.

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No Dust, Warms Atlantic Ocean?

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According to a new study, about 70% of the recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is from reduced numbers of dust storms and volcanic eruptions. Other factors, such as a warming of the global climate, contribute only about 30% to the upward trend.  Read more here.

April Quadrant

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Folks,

 

The April edition of Quadrant has published a written version of the talk that I gave at the Heartland-2 conference in New York, under the title “A New Policy Direction for Climate Change”. It can be accessed online at:

 

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/4/a-new-policy-direction-for-climate-change

 

The same issue also contains an very useful analysis by Tom Quirk of the perils of computer modelling, though I can’t find an electronic copy posted (if anyone finds one, perhaps they could distribute the details).

 

Lastly, if anyone wants to become depressed then try a browse through some of the 122 and counting submissions to the Australian Senate enquiry into the draft emissions trading legislation, at:

 

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/economics_ctte/cprs_09/submissions/sublist.htm

 

Perhaps it’s just the ones that I’ve picked out to look at, but my God there’s a mountain of self-serving rubbish here. Amongst it, though, there are a few shining lights, including No. 28, from Viv Forbes and the Climate Science Coalition.

 

 

Cathy

Team of Climate Sceptics Invited to UN Copenhagen Conference

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THE fifteenth United Nations Climate Conference (COP-15) will be held in Copenhagen in November. While only one official view on the science, that of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is usually put forward at these gatherings, this year the United Nations has agreed to support an alternative and probably rival overall assessment from a team of climate change sceptics.    

This decision follows a recommendation from Vaclav Klaus, the well-known climate sceptic who currently holds the European Union Presidency.     

The recommendation was first made to President Klaus by David Henderson, a former chief economist at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based on the work of Irving L. Janis on ‘Groupthink’.  

According to the late Mr Janis irrespective of the personality characteristics and other predispositions of the members of a policy-making group, when the decision-makers constitute a cohesive group and are under stress from external threats it can lead to illusions of invulnerability and belief in the inherent morality of the group leading to self-censorship, illusions of unanimity and an incomplete consideration of alternatives solutions to the issue at hand.  

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