Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Koala Bear

Metres of Sea-Level Rise: Climate Commissioner

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WILL Steffen is the executive director of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute and also a member of the Australian Climate Commission. This is the Climate Commission established to provide all Australians with an independent and reliable source of information about the science of climate change. This is the same Professor Steffan who, you may remember, sort of fudged hot day data for western Sydney [1].

My name is Mr Koala and I’ve been reading the latest contribution from this professor who is paid to provide me with an independent and reliable source of information on climate change.

He has a piece in today’s national newspaper, The Australian. It’s really scary! Professor Steffan tell us:

“Scientists have painted a clear picture of the risks from failing to act on climate change. The natural world would experience the sixth great extinction event in Earth’s history, coral reefs would almost completely disappear, and we would be facing metres of sea-level rise as oceans continue to warm and polar ice sheets melt and disintegrate.”

Ouch. Nemo!

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Abbot and Marohasy Join Chinese Climate Science Community

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WESTERN science, along with western civilization appears to be in terminal decline.[1] China has shot into second place in terms of number of scientific articles that are published in international journals and Chinese scientists are set to take the top spot in the next few years.[2] Drs Jennifer Marohasy and John Abbot have joined the Chinese climate science community with a recent article in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.[3]

My name is Mr Koala and I’ve been studying all the papers listed in volume 29, number 4 of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. This is a journal sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

I asked Dr Marohasy why she didn’t have this important paper published by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. She replied that it was sent to the Journal of Climate, amongst others, but they rejected the article, not because they had any issues with the science, but because they questioned the paper’s relevance.

Relevance!

Even a Koala, not at the top of his tree, can see the relevance.

This is a paper that shows how to forecast rainfall better than the General Circulation Models so popular with climate change scientists in the west.

That’s how relevant it is.
[Read more…] about Abbot and Marohasy Join Chinese Climate Science Community

Artificial Salinity Target for Artificial Lower Lake

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IN the newly released Murray Darling Basin Plan there is a proposed target salinity for Lake Alexandrina. The plan suggests this target salinity value to be measured at Milang:

“The inclusion of a salinity target for Lake Alexandrina will provide for the management of salinity in both Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. The Milang location is proposed as there is a historical record for this site, and it is not influenced by the day-to-day operations of the barrages which could result in short-term salinity fluctuations at sites closer to the mouth.

The proposed Basin Plan has been amended to introduce a new target value for salinity for managing water flows in the Lower Lakes (measured at Milang) of 600mg/L for 95% of the time.”

Milang is located on the western edge of Lake Alexandrina, as you can see on the map.

The salinity target value of 600mg/L can be compared to the salinity of seawater that is about 35,000 mg/L.

In other words, the target value is about 1.7% of the salinity of the ocean.

[Read more…] about Artificial Salinity Target for Artificial Lower Lake

Thank YOU, And

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My name is Mr Koala and I would like to thank some of the readers of this blog for their very generous donation:

M (from the NT) donated $50

P (from SA) donated $50

J (from NSW) donated $100

So Jen and I have $200 from our recent fundraising drive.  Thank you!

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Media Watch Witch Hunt

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IN the old days they would have just bound her, thrown her into the lake, and waited to see if she floated. That was how one viewer responded to the vicious dunking of Jennifer Marohasy by Jonathan Holmes on their Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Media Watch program on March 19, 2012.

Dr Marohasy just wants to restore the Murray River’s estuary, but the pushback from the ABC ’s Media Watch program was personal and aggressive.

My name is Koala and I’ve been studying a complaint about that Media Watch program made by Bob Fernley Jones, a retired professional engineer, to the ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs (A&CA). As Mr Fernley Jones explains: Media Watch ignored all the evidence in condemning Dr Marohasy and broke its own rules and standards. Mr Fernley Jones made it easy for the A&CA by listing all the standards that have been breached.

But according to the A&CA, Jonathan Holmes was just expressing their opinions, and under the Editorial Policies, there is no requirement for accuracy in their opinion. So the A&CA has rejected this complaint from Mr Fernley Jones. What a nonsense ruling!

Even a Koala can see that Mr Holmes was very naughty and nasty.
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Media Watch of 19 March 2012 (What’s in a Name),

By Bob Fernley Jones

SUMMARY:

These complaints concern extreme bias and errors of fact as communicated by Jonathan Holmes in the ABC Media Watch program of March 19, 2012 entitled ‘What’s in a Name’. The show very obviously broke key ABC Editorial Policies in these ways:

A. Jonathan Holmes presented his personal interest views in a gross subjective manner

B. Critical information was withheld from the viewers

C. There was no balance and group-think was apparent in the Media Watch team

D. The scientific consensus on the Lower Murray estuary was seriously misrepresented

E. The program overtly attacked the reputation of two Australian scientists, Jennifer Marohasy and Peter Ridd, and also the Australian Environment Foundation

F. ABC Media Watch should issue an apology to Dr Marohasy, Professor Ridd, the Australian Environment Foundation and the public

[Read more…] about Media Watch Witch Hunt

Basil Beamish for Climate Commissioner

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I’ve been reading about the Commission: the Climate Commission established to provide all Australians with an independent and reliable source of information about the science of climate change.

Two of the commissioners, Professors Will Steffan and Lesley Hughes, have just published a report stating that New South Wales is becoming hotter and heatwaves will become more severe.

My name is Mr Koala Bear and I’ve been studying their report ‘The Critical Decade: New South Wales Climate Impacts and Opportunities’. And that is not what the data says, not all the data.

Scientist Basil Beamish begins at the beginning. He has plotted climate data for two sites in NSW for which there is data back to 1890: Bathurst (pink line in chart) and Observatory Hill (blue line in chart). One of these is an inland site and one is coastal. One is to the east of Parramatta, the site favoured by the Cimate Commissioners and one is to the west.

This data suggests that that it was hotter back in the period 1910 to 1930. It was indeed very hot at Bathurst in 1919 with more than 31 days above 35.0°C (pink line in chart).   At Observatory Hill, the hottest year measured by days above 35.0°C was 1926 (blue line in chart).

If Professor Steffan and Hughes are going to make statements about temperatures trends they have an obligation to consider all the instrumental data that is available. I mean they have an obligation to begin at the beginning, not 1960 as they do in their very misleading report.

I am not keen on the idea of counting day above 35.0 °C by calendar year as a measure of global warming. A problem is that the calendar year separates the hot months in each summer; it arbitrarily splits this one discrete period into two repeatedly. But never mind, if the Commissioners want to do this they can. But they must start at the beginning.

Professors Hughes and Steffan have no business being Climate Commissioners.

I want to start a petition: Basil Beamish for Climate Commissioner!

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