Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Correcting Global Cooling (Part 2)

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THERE has been some anecdotal evidence suggesting that last month, October 2008, was unusually cold.  The sophisticated weather-watcher, of course, waits for some official global temperature data to be published before concluding very much. 

Al Gore’s scientific advisor, James Hansen from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), publishes a monthly mean global surface temperature. 

Some dispute the methodology Dr Hansen uses to arrive at his monthly mean values, but nevertheless I have observed that his GISS data is usually somewhere in the vicinity of the data from the Hadley Centre at the UK Meteorology Bureau and the Satellite data compiled at the University of Alabama, Huntsville – though yes Dr Hansen’s data is usually on the warm side.  [Read more…] about Correcting Global Cooling (Part 2)

Correcting Ocean Cooling: NASAChanges Data to Fit the Models Adjusts Data from Buoys

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NASA scientist, Josh Willis, was so concerned that his data, showing ocean cooling, did not fit the official consensus on climate change that he searched for a solution.  Eventually he “applied a correction” so the historical ocean temperature record showed a relatively steady increase in line with the climate models. 

Perhaps Dr Willis really did get it wrong between 2003 and 2005 when his data showed a large decrease in the heat content of the ocean.  But after reading his justification for the correction, I am not convinced.  Indeed and I am left wondering how to ever trust the official temperature record again.

This is Dr Willis’ story:

On a Thursday evening in February 2007, Josh Willis stood in front of his laptop, his wife cajoling him to get ready to go out to dinner. He looked with a sinking feeling at the map he had just made. Willis, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, specializes in making estimates of how much heat the ocean stores from year to year. [Read more…] about Correcting Ocean Cooling: NASAChanges Data to Fit the Models Adjusts Data from Buoys

Looking for Community?

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If you want to be an integral part of this blog community visit the Community Home page.  There are links to the best online videos, upcoming debates on climate change, and more.  

If you would like to share with this community, send me an email with ‘For Community Page’ in the subject line.  

We all need a home and it’s nice to have a community.

[Photograph of the crab taken by Jennifer Marohasy at Mackay, North Queensland, Australia, on October 2, 2008]

Why Campaign Against Hunting Polar Bears?

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THE World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has condemned Nunavut – the most sparsely populated and largest Canadian Territory – for maintaining its polar bear hunt quota threatening that boycotts may follow the decision.

CBC News ran a story last week that Environment Minister, Olayuk Akesuk, has accepted a recommendation from the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board not to change this season’s polar bear quota of 105 polar bears for the Baffin Bay area.  This is despite concerns from government officials about overhunting. Baffin Bay is an area of water and ice between the northern Baffin Island and Greenland. 

Of course much of the English-speaking world would be surprised to learn that polar bears are still hunted.   [Read more…] about Why Campaign Against Hunting Polar Bears?

Why You Should Support Independent Media (Part 1, For Koalas)

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SOME time ago I found myself seated next to a University academic – he had thin grey hair.  We were squashed together at the end of a long table in a dim and noisy Vietnamese restaurant in Brisbane [Australia].  The gathering was organised in support of alternative online media, so, I felt comfortable suggesting to him that the mainstream media had lost its way; that journalists at newspapers across the English-speaking world too often just repeat whatever is politically correct. 

The professor was offended – what right did I have to pass critical judgement on his colleagues!   So, I changed tack. I tentatively ventured that there seemed to be a lot of repetition in reporting of issues in the mainstream media.  

He agreed, and went on to explain that there are established story lines – that journalists only add to these narratives, as one might add to a large tapestry.  

I was struck by the metaphor.   The mainstream news had to all fit together like a picture.  What is reported tomorrow is expected to accord with what was reported yesterday. 

THERE is a story regularly reported in the mainstream Australian media about the Murray River and the death of red gum forests based on a false and romantic notion of wilderness.    

Politicians, wanting to ‘save forests’, support naive legislation based on the story.  The red gum forests become progressively less, rather than more, resilient including to wildfires.

Every time there is a hot fire in the red gum forests along the Murray River koalas are burnt.   This koalas just survived a forest in Barmah Forest, in the Central Murray Valley, on 17th October, 2008. 

SUPPORT politically-incorrect independent media that can provide an alternative perspective and challenge some of the non-sense.  Support this blog.  There is an orange DONATE button at the top of the right-hand column of this page.

Michael Crichton Dies Aged Just 66

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MICHAEL Crichton, author of more than a dozen best-selling science fiction adventures including ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Andromeda Strain’, and also a well known global warming sceptic, died of cancer in Los Angeles, aged 66, on Tuesday. 

My favourite Crichton-book is ‘State of Fear’, a thriller about a character with a strong handshake known as Kenner.  A Professor of Geoenvironmental Engineering at MIT, Kenner travels the world fighting eco-terrorists including at the Antarctic. Published in 2005 the novel is premised on the idea that global warming is a hoax. 

My favourite Crichton quote is “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance. We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.”

What a terrible loss.