Jennifer Marohasy

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Introducing a Progressive Environmentalist and Blogger: Kerry Miller

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Conferences are an opportunity to make new friends.  I met Kerry Miller at the Australian Environment Foundation last weekend in Canberra and have added her blog StrangeTimes to my blog roll. 

Like me Kerry is an optimist and she sees technology as a solution to many environmental problems.  StrangeTimes is a group blog with a particular perspective and explains:

“We reject green ideology because it opposes rapid development, fears change and romanticises pre-industrial life. In practice, “sustainable development” sustains only poverty, malnutrion and death.”

Strong words! 

Kerry and fellow blogger, David McMullen, have written a little report on the Australian Environment Foundation conference which can be read here http://strangetimes.lastsuperpower.net/?p=139

Jennifer Visits the Australian Parliament

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Stewart Franks, Bob Carter and I gave a presentation at Parliament House on Monday evening on Climate Change.  Professor Carter focused on global temperatures, I followed with some rainfall graphs for different parts of Australia, and then Associate Professor Franks explained why rainfall along the east coast of Australia is so variable and dominated by either El Nina or La Nina cycles back at least as far as 1660.

Our main message was that there is no climate crisis, but that climate change is a natural hazard.  

The event was organised by the office of Dennis Jensen MP.  Dr Jensen is the member for Tangney in Western Australia. 

Shadow minister, Nick Minchin, and former opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, both attended and are pictured with me at Parliament House on Monday evening.

Remember Taralga, Still no Windmills

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Remember that blog post from the residents of Taralga back in June 2005 explaining they did not want any windmills?

Well today I drove through the little town which is about 45 kms north of Goulburn in New South Wales (Australia).  It is very small and very cute.  

I didn’t see any windmills.

AEF Annual Conference: Photographs from The First Day

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The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) held its Annual Conference and AGM this last weekend in Canberra.   We heard some great speakers and also had a good time.  Photographs about to be uploaded here

After I welcomed delegates to the conference as Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation, Professor Bob Carter spoke about climate change – both warming and cooling – as a natural hazard.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Kininmonth, a meteorologist formerly at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and Professor Don Aikin, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra, also spoke on climate change and emphasised like Professor Carter, that it is something that always changes.  

 

Gillian Hogendyk, AEF Secretary, is pictured in the front row at Rydges Lakeside.  Gillian is a Vet who lives in Warren (near Dubbo) and has spent some years studying the natural history of the Macquarie Marshes in central western New South Wales.  Gillian spoke to conference delegates about the need for controls on grazing within the marshes. 

       

Forester, Mark Poynter, is pictured here making some last minute changes to his speech notes before telling us about the River Red Gum forests of western Victoria including how controlled grazing can be a useful weed control. 

 

 

 

Well known climate change sceptic and sometimes commentator at this blog, John McLean was also at the conference.

 

 

 

Leon Ashby recorded the entire first day’s proceedings and I hope will have DVDs for sale soon.  I shall ask him to post details as a comment.

 

 

I will post more on the conference over the next week, including photographs from the dinner where comedian Dr Barry York spoke about “that movie”.   

Next year’s AEF conference and AGM will be in Perth.

Counting Cows In Outback Australia

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A Queensland jackeroo   (‘jackeroo’=cowboy, Australian version!)   is overseeing his herd in remote territory when suddenly a brand-new BMW advances out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a designer suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, ‘If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?’ 
 
The jackaroo looks at the man, obviously a yuppie   (‘yuppie’=A young city or suburban resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent lifestyle) , then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, ‘Sure, why not?’ 
 
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite tha t scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . 
 
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel Spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, ‘You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.’ 
 
‘That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,’ says the Cowboy. 
 
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. 
 
Then the cowboy says to the young man, ‘Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?’
 
&n bsp;The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, ‘Okay, why not?’
 
 ‘You work for the Australian Government’, says the Jackeroo.
 
 ‘Wow! That’s correct,’ says the yuppie, ‘but how did you guess that?’ 
 
‘No guessing required.’ answered the jackeroo. ‘You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used all ki nds of expensive equipment that clearly somebody else paid for, You t ried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about cows … this is a flock of sheep. Now give me back my dog.’    

[via Denis Barrett]

Temperature Trends and Carbon Dioxide: A Note from Cohenite

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Hi Jennifer,

 

Looking at the temperature trends from 1900-2008, it is not clear that there is a carbon dioxide signal.

 

In a recent post I looked at how base periods can create an artificial upwards temperature trend;

 

https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/003303.html#comments

 

The 20thC featured 2 El Nino dominated climate patterns (+ve PDO), and one La Nina phase (-ve PDO) from 1940-1976. The temperature trend in the first +ve PDO is almost identical to the temperature trend in the second +ve PDO;

 

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/smooth.jpg

 

The similar slopes at the beginning and end of the 20thC represent warming WITHIN the +ve PDO’s, while the lower starting point for the first +ve PDO is an artifact of the 1951-1980 GISS base period. The GISS graph also shows post 1998 temperatures as increasing. This is contradicted by the other temperature data collectors, which show a decreasing trend consistent with the emergence of another –ve PDO post 2001 (discussed below). The issue is, what would be the temperature trend be with ENSO removed and what part would CO2 play in causing that residual trend?

 

In a recent paper, David Douglass and John Christy isolate a temperature trend due to CO2 forcing, independent of feedback (ie: the enhanced greenhouse) and natural factors such as ENSO and volcanic effect;

 

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf

 

Douglass and Christy’s (DC) study is based on 1979-2008 UAH non-surface data. After extracting ENSO, volcanoes and allowing for latitude band effects, they isolate a CO2 signal of+0.070g/decade; where g is the gain due to any feedback. In respect of ‘g’ DC note “there is general agreement among climate scientists for the case of no feedback”. (p3).

 

DC estimate there is an undeducted solar irradiance forcing (SF) of 20% (p10), or +0.014C per decade. This generally agrees with AR4’s figure for SF of +0.12Wm-2, which translates to a temperature of +0.16C per century (see Chp 2 pp 187-193). AR4 has reduced this SF figure from TAR’s estimate of +0.3Wm-2, or a temperature increase of approximately 0.4C PC (see 6.11.1.2; FIG 6). The AR4 amount for SF is based on the period from 1750-present, but, according to FIG 2.17, the bulk of the SF has occurred in the 20thC. DC’s SF estimate seems about right then.

 

So, deducting DC’s SF from +0.07 – +0.014 = +0.056C PD for a CO2 signal in the period 1979-2008.

 

However, DC note that “the global atmospheric temperature anomalies of Earth reached a maximum in 1998 which has not been exceeded during the subsequent 10 years”. (Abstract). As noted above, GISS is showing increasing post 1998 temperature, so what is happening in the 21stC?

 

In an analysis based on the period 2001-2008 Lucia also removed ENSO from 5 of the temperature indices;

 

http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ipcc-falsifies-gavin.gif

 

For a full discussion of Lucia’s analysis see;

 

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/gavin-schmidt-corrects-for-enso-ipcc-projections-still-falsify/

 

Lucia has applied 2 statistical approaches to all post 2000 data, GISS, HadCrut, NOAA, UAH and RSS, and obtained a combined result for OLS of -0.3C(+-1.6) PC, and for Cochrane-Orcutt, -0.6C(+-1.5) PC.

 

Averaging the 2 methodologies gives an ENSO free temperature trend for 2001-2008 of-0.45C or a decadal trend of -0.045C. Lucia has not adjusted for volcanoes as there were no proximate eruptions, or for SF. If an offset for SF of +0.014C is made, this would produce an underlying cooling trend of -0.059C PD, presumably due to CO2.

 

So, in summary:

 

1.     AR4 notes that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20thC is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic gas concentrations” (Executive Summary, CHP 2)

2.     AR4 allocates a Radiative Forcing to the combined GHG’s of 2.63Wm-2; CO2 is allocated a RF of 1.66Wm-2, or 2/3’s of the total RF.

3.     The RF for CO2 is estimated by AR4 to lead to an increase in temperature from a doubling of CO2 of ~ 3C. CO2 has increased ~ 40% since 1900. This should have produced a temperature increase of 1.2C or 0.12C PD.

4.     Applying AR4’s quotient for CO2 RF of 2/3 to the findings of DC and Lucia we obtain the following CO2 signals; DC = +0.056  3 x 2 = + 0.037C PD for the period 1979-2000; for Lucia = -0.059  3 x 2 = -0.039C PD for the period 2001-2008.

5.     A further complication applies to the first ½ of the 20thC temperature trends. There was less CO2 and GHG’s prior to 1976, yet the temperature trends at the beginning of the 20thC, as shown by GISS above and HadCrut are very similar; http://i32.tinypic.com/2s01m5y.jpg

6.     Then, of course, there is the 30 year decline in temperatures from 1940-1976 when CO2 was increasing.

7.     DC and Lucia have found a CO2 signal. It is inconsistent, I draw 3 conclusions;

a) The inconsistency found by DC and Lucia reflects the contrary movements of CO2 and temperature apparent during the rest of the 20thC and history generally.

b) IPCC forcing estimates for CO2 are grossly over-inflated. Even more so when enhanced greenhouse, “g”, is quantified with +ve feedback.

c) In respect of “g”; if the CO2 signal is larger than that found by DC and Lucia, then –ve feedbacks would have to be much greater. These –ve feedbacks cannot be aerosols (see DC p 12), or ENSO as suggested by Keenlyside et al. Perhaps climate sensitivity to SF is greater than AR4 assumes.

 

Cheers, Cohenite

Newcastle, Australia