Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2011

New insight into cloud formation

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If cloud formation  is impacted by cosmic ray flux, as suggested by new research from CERN, then this further complicates our understanding of drivers of global temperature:

GENEVA, 25 August 2011. In a paper published in the journal Nature today, the CLOUD1 experiment at CERN2 has reported its first results. The CLOUD experiment has been designed to study the effect of cosmic rays on the formation of atmospheric aerosols – tiny liquid or solid particles suspended in the atmosphere – under controlled laboratory conditions. Atmospheric aerosols are thought to be responsible for a large fraction of the seeds that form cloud droplets. Understanding the process of aerosol formation is therefore important for understanding the climate.

The CLOUD results show that trace vapours assumed until now to account for aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can explain only a tiny fraction of the observed atmospheric aerosol production. The results also show that ionisation from cosmic rays significantly enhances aerosol formation. Precise measurements such as these are important in achieving a quantitative understanding of cloud formation, and will contribute to a better assessment of the effects of clouds in climate models.

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Sea will save the Murray mouth

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THE Murray-Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia and for years has been considered an ecological disaster.

Later this year the government will release a plan that is supposed to place the Murray-Darling on a sustainable environmental footing, and already $10 billion has been set aside for the plan’s implementation. But if the guide released last year gives any indication of what to expect, then it will do nothing to restore that part of the system most affected by agriculture and most in need of saving: the Lower Lakes and Murray mouth, once the Murray River’s estuary.

The estuary was destroyed when 7.6km of concrete barrages were built across the bottom of the Murray in the 1930s. If nothing is done about this enormous structure there is no guarantee water will get to the Murray’s mouth even if South Australia gets the 4000 gigalitres it is demanding as part of the water reform (4000GL has a market value of $3.2bn to $8bn, depending on where in the Murray-Darling it is purchased).

The barrages have turned the coastal terminal lakes into a permanent and artificially freshwater system, to the detriment of the local environment and the river.

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Forestry deal sinks Tasmanian wooden boat building

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THE future of Tasmania’s valuable wooden boat building industry is directly threatened by the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) on future use of Tasmania’s forests according to the following media release…

“Locking up the remaining sources of timber used by Tasmania’s wooden boat builders will destroy what is currently a very valuable, viable and iconic industry,” Coalition Forestry Spokesman Senator Richard Colbeck said.

“Details of the sham agreement are spreading far and wide and I am now being contacted by boat builders who fear Tasmania’s wooden boat building industry will be ruined.

“Discussion on the impending disaster for the sector has global reach through industry blogs.

“Despite the fact that 90 per cent of two key iconic species, Celery Top Pine and King Bill Pine, are already in reserves the Greens are still not satisfied.

“More than 70 per cent of remaining sources of these timbers are in the 430,000 hectares rubber stamped by former Wilderness Society director Jonathan West in his flimsy advice accepted by the Prime Minister and the Premier last week.

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Convoy of no confidence: what I will say

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I’ve been asked to speak outside Parliament House tomorrow morning, to the ‘Convoy of No Confidence’.   What an honour.  

Following are my speech notes:

THERE is nothing more basic to our physical well-being than food, and Australian farmers are amongst the most efficient and responsible food producers in the world.  Yet they are increasingly demonised and their businesses right now under extraordinary and unnecessary pressure.

The pressure comes, at one level, from apparently arbitrary decisions made by this Commonwealth government, but the previous Coalition government was no better.

Decisions affecting agriculture increasingly reflect the values of an overweight metropolitan elite who have no empathy for, or understanding of, food production or food producers.

It is fashionable to denigrate the very people who keep our supermarket shelves piled high with affordable milk, meat, fruit and vegetable.  And so GetUp! – with members who mostly sit down – dictate ever more impractical but fashionable policies.

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Climate4you Update July 2011

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THE climate update for July 2011 indicates:

“The Northern Hemisphere was characterised by regional variability. Below average temperatures extended across western North America, most of the North Atlantic and Europe, and central Russia. Above average temperatures characterised eastern North America, western Russia and eastern Siberia.

The Southern Hemisphere in general was close to average 1998-2006 conditions, with the exception of parts of the Antarctic. Most other land regions experienced below average temperatures.

Also the near Equator temperatures conditions were close to average 1998-2006 conditions.

The Arctic was characterized by a relatively high variability of surface air temperature deviations from the 1998-2006 average. The European Arctic sector had below average temperatures, and also Alaska and parts of Russia and western Siberia were relatively cold. Most of the Canadian sector and eastern Siberia experienced above average temperatures.

Most of the Antarctic continent experienced high average temperatures, the only major exception being the Antarctic Peninsula…

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Report on Tumut flooding raises more questions than it answers

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LAST December Snowy Hydro dumped water into the already flooded Murray-Darling, but said it had little choice.   A report just released by the NSW Office of Water clears Snowy Hydro but only in so much as it states that Snowy Hydro operated in accordance with its licence conditions.

At issue has always been whether these licence conditions were fair both to Snowy Hydro and those living and working in the Tumut and along the Murrumbidgee.    In particular did Snowy Hydro’s licence conditions, as enforced by the NSW Office of Water, oblige Snowy Hydro to make releases that contributed to the flooding?

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