Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

jennifer

Say No to Emissions Trading: Art Raiche

By

It is foolish beyond measure to enter into an Emissions Trading System (ETS) based on the hysterical predictions of CSIRO’s computer modelling. To quote Prof Freeman Dyson of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, one of the world’s most eminent physicists: “The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.”

If there is global consensus that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing global warming, why is it that over 30,000 US scientists disagree and have petitioned the US government against actions to mitigate CO2 emissions? See http://www.petitionproject.org/

Why have the oceans been cooling for 5 years? Why is Antarctic sea ice increasing?

Why is it that despite the past decade of increased CO2 emission levels, the temperature has been stable and is predicted by the Hadley Centre to actually go down over the next decade?

We need to think very carefully before following the recommendations of the Garnaut Report, possibly the longest economic suicide note in Australia’s history.

Art Raiche
Killara, NSW

The Greenhouse Effect is a Myth: A Note from Jim Peden

By

As a dissenting physicist, I simply can no longer buy the notion that CO2 produces any significant warming of the atmosphere at any rate.

I’ve studied the atomic absorption physics to death, from John Nicol’s extensive development to the much longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up.

Even if every single IR photon absorbed by a CO2 molecule were magically transformed into purely thermal translational modes , the pitifully small quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t add up to much additional heat. And if the aforementioned magical 100% transformation from radiation into “heat” were true, then all arguments concerning re-emission ( source of all the wonderful “greenhouse effect” cartoons with their arrows flying in all directions ) are out the window.

More and more, I am becoming convinced that atmospheric heating is primarily by thermal conduction from the surface, whose temperature is determined primarily by solar absorption. I get a lot of email from laymen seeking simple answers ( I’m sure you all do as well ). My simple reply goes like this:

1. The sun heats the earth.
2. The earth heats the atmosphere
3. After the sun sets, the atmosphere cools back down

With a parting comment: If we were to have 96 continuous hours without sunlight, temperatures would likely be below freezing over all the world’s land masses. The warmest place you could find would be to take a swim in the nearest ocean. There is no physical process in the atmosphere which “traps” heat. The so-called “greenhouse effect ” is a myth.

Jim Peden

Jim is Webmaster of Middlebury Networks and Editor of the Middlebury Community Network, spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database. He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the “100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year” and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Bushfires, Prescribed Burning and Global Warming

By

Two myths about climate change and bushfire management are often repeated in the media:

1. Because of global warming, Australia will be increasingly subject to uncontrollable holocaust-like “megafires”; and

2. Fuel reduction by prescribed burning must cease because it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus exacerbating global warming and the occurrence of megafires.

Both statements are incorrect. However they represent the sort of plausible-sounding assertions which, if repeated often enough, can take on a life of their own and lead eventually to damaging policy change.

I’m paraphrasing from an important new report entitled ‘Bushfires, Prescribed Burning and Global Warming’ by Roger Underwood, Chairman of the Bushfire Front, David Packham, Senior Research Fellow at the School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, and Phil Cheney, Honorary Research Fellow, CSIRO, Canberra.

The authors consider in detail at the carbon balance in relation to fire in the three most typical Australian ecosystems: tropical grasslands, tropical/subtropical savannahs and tall forests and conclude:

1. Although the situation is almost carbon-neutral, all fires in tropical grasslands actually sequester some carbon in the form of “black carbon” which is incorporated into the soil;

2. Over time, the carbon balance of fires in tropical and subtropical savannahs is also just about neutral. In some years more CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere from fires than is absorbed by post-fire regrowth, while in other years more carbon is taken up by regrowth than is lost to the atmosphere from fire (including prescribed burning and wildfires).

The management approach that will optimise storage of carbon in Australian savannahs is one of low-intensity, early dry-season burning under mild weather conditions. This protects the overstorey trees and woody shrubs which are consumed by hot late-season fires.

3. Tall forests store carbon in tree trunks, bark, branches and roots, in woody shrubs and mid-storey vegetation and in the litter and accumulated organic debris on the ground. Eventually all old trees begin to decay from within, and in the absence of fire, the accumulated litter on the forest floor begins to rot away. At this point, the rate of release of carbon through decay exceeds the rate of storage of carbon by new growth. Thus Australia’s “old growth” eucalypt forests eventually stop being a carbon sink and become a source of CO2.

Fuel reduction by prescribed burning employs low-intensity fires lit under mild weather conditions at a time when there is still some moisture in the fuel. This ensures that the flames are generally less than a metre high and the fire is confined to the surface layer of fine fuel and the green material in the low shrubs. A properly managed prescribed fire will be conducted at a time when organic matter (including charcoal) in the soil will not burn. The ideal prescribed burn consumes only the surface fuels, leaving behind a layer of ash protecting the soil and the heavy logs.

The amount of CO2 released by a low-intensity fire is small and the store of carbon on the forest floor is rapidly replaced as the fine fuels re-accumulate and the low shrubs regrow. By comparison, a hot summer bushfire burning under drought conditions will consume all of the surface fuels, including large logs and organic matter in the soil which may have accumulated carbon for thousands of years. An intense summer bushfire will even consume the canopies of the tallest trees. The amount of CO2 produced by a fire is directly proportional to the total amount of fuel consumed in the fire. Thus a hot summer bushfire [in Australia’s tall forests] will release massive amounts of carbon.

The authors conclude that from the point of view of carbon storage in grasslands, savannahs and tall forests, the best management approach is one in which large high-intensity wildfires are minimised by periodic prescribed burns carried out under mild weather conditions.

The authors also examine the alarmist concept that “global warming will lead to unstoppable megafires”. They observe that if the current climate change models are correct, there will only be an increase in average annual temperatures of between 2 and 4 degrees over the next 100 years. The effect of this on bushfire behaviour, by itself, will be trivial. Fire intensity is far more significantly affected by fuel quantity, fuel dryness and wind strength, than it is by temperature.

Some climate change computer models also suggest a significant reduction in rainfall, leading to increased fuel drying and increased fuel availability at lower temperatures. This is the same effect as that of drought, a phenomenon which is common in Australia. Drought does result in more intense fires…..but only if nothing is done to reduce fuels before the fire occurs.

The factor which “doomsday” commentators ignore is the opportunity for land managers to get in first, and reduce fuels before a potential megafire starts. In other words, the potential megafire can be forestalled, simply by the adoption of a program of fuel reduction prescribed burning under mild weather conditions.

Finally, the authors advocate that the Precautionary Principle must apply: this means playing safe while the research is being done. The safe approach is not to ban prescribed burning because of an unsupported assertion that it may increase atmospheric CO2 levels, but to promote prescribed burning because it reduces the size and intensity of wildfires.

No Extension of World Heritage Area into Tall Tassie Forests: Peter Garrett

By

In a media release Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, yesterday welcomed the World Heritage Committee’s consideration at its meeting in Quebec, Canada, of an expert report on Australia’s management of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

The report, prepared by an expert mission sent by the World Heritage Committee to Tasmania in March, was based on extensive consultation, field research and rigorous examination of many long standing issues.

“It is pleasing the experts concluded that the outstanding universal values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area are being satisfactorily managed, as are potential threats from production forestry outside the World Heritage boundary”, Mr Garrett said.

The mission also found that the Regional Forest Agreement and Tasmania’s forest practices system provide an appropriate framework for managing conservation values outside of the World Heritage Area.

The World Heritage Committee suggested a number of additional measures to enhance protection of possible values outside the existing World Heritage Area. These include possible adjustment of the World Heritage Area to include 21 areas of national parks and state reserves that are already covered by the World Heritage management plan but currently outside the boundary, and enhancing resources and capacity for the conservation of archaeological and Aboriginal sites.

Mr Garrett noted that both the Australian and Tasmanian Governments have responsibilities in relation to the World Heritage Area and would cooperate in carefully considering the implications of the World Heritage Committee recommendations.

The Australian Government agreed in-principle with the recommendations to extend the 1.3 million hectare Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to include the additional 21 formal reserves recommended by the expert mission.

Mr Garrett also noted that the expert mission found no extension of the World Heritage area into tall eucalypt forests was warranted as the World Heritage area already includes a good representation of tall eucalypts. This contrasted with the World Heritage Committee’s request to consider, at Australia’s discretion, a further extension of the World Heritage Area in these forests.

The Australian Government has no plans to extend the current boundary into production forests.

Mr Garrett said that the Australian Government agreed in principle with the recommendations of the five yearly review of the implementation of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement and is working with the Tasmanian Government towards this implementation.

The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is one of 17 World Heritage properties in Australia. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982, and extended in 1989, the Tasmanian Wilderness is one of the world’s largest World Heritage Areas and covers 20% of the entire Tasmanian landmass.

Measuring Global Temperatures

By

“If we are to understand the real state of the world, we need to focus on the fundamentals and we need to look at realities, not myths.” Bjorn Lomborg, 2001

According to geological history the earth has been warming for about 18,000 years and over this period sea levels have risen over 100 metres.

While the overall temperature trend has been one of warming, there have been ups and downs due to natural climatic variations. So, if we consider the last 2,000 years of global temperature anomalies there was the Medieval Warm Period followed by the Little Ice Age and then a period of relative rapid warming during the 20th century, Figure 1.

blog_2000 Years of Global Temps, Graph.jpg
Figure 1. 2,000 Years of Reconstructed Global Temperature Anomalies. Based on Loehle, C. 2007. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058. Thermometer data was added for 1850 -2007 by Roy W Spencer. From more information see http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

It was not until the development of the thermometer that temperatures could be measured with accuracy.

The Central England Temperature Series is considered the world’s longest series; the monthly mean begins in 1659, during the Little Ice Age.

The Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in conjunction with the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorology Office provide global temperature data going back only as far as 1850. This information is updated on a monthly basis.

It is this data set that is used by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for global temperature trends, Figure 2.

blog_Temp Anomaly, 1850-2007.jpg
Figure 2. The Global Temperature Anomaly for the period 1850 to 2007.

It is important to realize that Figures 1 and 2 show temperatures anomalies, not actual temperature. An anomaly is something that deviates from what is considered standard, normal or expected. The anomaly in Figure 2 shows the deviation from the mean temperature for the period 1961 to 1990.

We have become familiar with this representation of global temperatures but it is contrived to emphasis difference and in particular the extent to which temperatures have increased from 1850 to the present. When the same data is plotted just showing the actual global mean temperature for the same time period, the trend is no longer evident, Figure 3.

blog_Global Mean Temp, 1850-2007.jpg

Figure 3. Global Mean Temperature from 1850 – 2007

The data from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in conjunction with the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorology Office is generally accepted by those who subscribe to the idea that carbon dioxide is driving dangerous man-made global warming, as well as by the so-called climate skeptics. There are other organisations that collect information on global temperatures including the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in the US which claims to have the world’s largest archive of climate data.

Well known advisor to Al Gore, James Hansen, from NASA’s Goddard Space Institute has developed what is known as a GISS surface temperature analysis. This data set has shown more warming over recent years than the CRU data from the UK Meteorology Office and some argue that this is because the Hansen system overemphasizes temperatures at the North Pole.

There are ongoing arguments over the accuracy of the various data sets and methods of analysis. Ross McKitrick from Canada’s University of Guelph argues that 50 percent of global warming measured by land-based thermometers in the US since 1980 is due to local influences of man-made structures, also known as The Urban Heat Island Effect. When James Hansen recalculated temperatures in 2006 using a corrected algorithm, 1934 rather than 1998 was found to be the hottest in the last 100 years in the US. There have also been issues with the additions and losses of weather stations; for example many weather stations were lost in places like Siberia with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, thermometer temperature data has only been collected in the polar-regions since the 1940s and calculating the mean temperature at the poles is still difficult because of the sparseness of ground-based weather stations and the freezing environment takes its toll on equipment.

Bill Kininmonth, former head of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre, has suggested that because of the difficulty of assessing surface temperatures over ice surfaces it is more realistic to consider sea surface temperatures in places like the south pole and exclude areas of seasonal sea ice.

Dr Hansen has explained the general difficulty of measuring surface temperatures, “Even at the same location, the temperature near the ground may be very different from the temperature 5 ft above the ground and different again from 10 ft or 50 ft above the ground. Particularly in the presence of vegetation (say in a rainforest), the temperature above the vegetation may be very different from the temperature below the top of the vegetation. A reasonable suggestion might be to use the average temperature of the first 50 ft of air either above ground or above the top of the vegetation. To measure SAT (surface air temperature) we have to agree on what it is and, as far as I know, no such standard has been suggested or generally adopted. Even if the 50 ft standard were adopted, I cannot imagine that a weather station would build a 50 ft stack of thermometers to be able to find the true SAT at its location.”

Given these difficulties an alternative is to use temperature data from satellites.

Since 1979, Microwave Sounding Units (MSUs) on orbiting satellites have measured the intensity of upwelling microwave radiation from atmospheric oxygen with the intensity proportional to the temperature of vertical layers of the atmosphere. The research focus has been on getting a broadly representative measure of lower atmosphere temperature.

The satellite record of temperature in Figure 4, is from Roy Spencer at the https://viagragener.com University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and corrects for previous errors including orbital drift. Dr Spencer is the US Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua Satellite.

blog_UAH Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temp, Graph.jpg
Figure 4. Monthly globally averaged lower atmospheric temperature anomaly since 1979 as measured by NOAA and NASA satellites. For more information see http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

Figure 4 is another graph showing the temperature anomaly; in this case the deviation for the period 1979 – June 2008 from the mean temperature for the period 1979-1998.

————-
Figure 3 is based on ‘Certainty clouds the IPCC’ by Sinclair Davidson and Alex Robson, IPA Review, March 2007, from page 7. You can read the article here: http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/898/certainly-clouds-the-ipcc

How the National Electricity Grid Works in Australia

By

“Until the 1990s, Australia had a series of separate regional power grids. We now have a system linked almost across the nation – a system which, when well managed, is cheaper and more reliable. In the late 1980s, governments finally came to see that the existing state monopoly power commissions were amazingly inefficient and hungry for great gobs of capital for new power stations and coal mines.

“The greater reliability of a connected system is just as important as the cost savings. With a national grid and a national market, it is possible to provide softer cushions against natural or man-made catastrophes: a spiraling cyclone, a stinking hot afternoon (one of the worst risks), the collapse of a transmission tower, or, to take a gloomy view, a terrorist attack.

“So it is hardly surprising that state governments should have looked for a new way to keep the lights on. Of course, when talking to their voters back home, they still kept assuring their constituents – and still do – that they were looking after their power, that they were making sure that their state’s power supply is in good shape. The fact is that now all of the connected states rely upon each other and NEMMCO, to keep the whole show firing.

“As a result, much the same amount of base generating capacity can meet our needs now as 20 years ago. And, when precarious episodes have arisen, the wizards at NEMMCO managed to keep the system up, and you, good citizens, probably neither heard nor worried about it.

But … read more from Gavan McDonell at OLO about South Australia’s special role in the administration of all of this: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7585&page=0