Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2009

Climate Change Not Poised to Feed on Itself

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ONE week ago the Sydney Morning Herald published an opinion piece by Michael Raupach from CSIRO and fourteen other Australian scientists making four key claims to support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  A regular reader and commentator at this weblog, Cohenite, explains that the claims are not supported by the available evidence: 

1. The world is warming

The first conclusion is that the world has been warming since 1850. This is generally correct but what Professor Raupach et al. don’t mention is the warming follows a particularly cold period called the Little Ice Age [LIA] which ended in 1850. The correlation of a decline in solar activity with the LIA is well established with various measures of solar activity showing an increase at the same time as the world warmed after 1850.

Professor Raupach et al. say that most of the warming since 1850 has happened since 1950. This is incorrect. The temperature data from both the official English agency, HADCRUT, and the land-based American temperature agency, NASAGISS, show an increase in temperature from 1910 to 1944 which is equivalent to the temperature increase from 1976 to 1998. [Read more…] about Climate Change Not Poised to Feed on Itself

Who’s a Climate Scientist?

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“PROMINENT scientists with long publications records, such as Bob Carter, are routinely described by the media as not being climate scientists and really not reputable scientists at all if they aren’t on the alarmist bandwagon.  On the other hand, lawyers expressing alarmist views are described as prominent scientists. 

“And the scientists regularly put forward in the media as the world’s leading climate experts often turn out to be computer modelers with little or no background in climate science…

Read more from Myron Ebell here.

And of course Graeme Pearman who many in Australia assume to be a climate scientist, actually trained as a biologist and has a PhD in carbon budgeting. 

As an example of the bias, consider this interview by ABC Journalist Sabra Lane.

Data Purge at CRU

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Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre is well known for his thorough auditing of climate models and the data used to construct these models.   But a recent request for data by Mr McIntyre has so annoyed some at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that rather than provide the information, they have started withdrawing data that was previously publicly available.  Read more here.

New Atlas of IPCC Rainfall Projections

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atlas global water cycleRESEARCHERS from The Australian National University have created the world’s first comprehensive visual atlas of global rainfall projections over the next 100 years based on all of the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its most recent report.

PhD researcher Wee Ho Lim and Dr Michael Roderick from ANU have created the Atlas of the Global Water Cycle, which contains some 300 pages of global maps and tables showing current and projected measures of rainfall, evaporation and runoff.

The atlas illustrate the projections of each of the 20 computer models used by different countries to forecast future water cycles – data drawn upon by the IPCC in its reporting on climate change, but not visualised in the same way and place until now.

“We know that as the world warms there is likely to be more rainfall on a global average basis,” Dr Roderick said. “But where is this increased rainfall going to occur, and which areas might get drier? These are simple questions to ask, but it is surprisingly hard for an individual to get an answer, whether they’re a farmer, civil engineer, teacher or interested citizen,” Dr Roderick said.

Read the rest of the media release here.