Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

News

Modellers Remove Evidence of Cooling and Editor Removes Comment by Climate Sceptic

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WITHIN the scientific community it has generally been accepted that as a continent, Antarctica, has been getting colder – or at least not warming.  Those who subscribe to the general consensus that climate change is driven by manmade carbon dioxide emissions, and that the world is generally getting warmer, have claimed this is not inconsistent with their greenhouse gas theory or the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models.  They have explained that Antarctica is a general exception to the global trend because of a loss of ozone in the polar stratosphere.  [1]

When communicating with the general public, however, some high profile scientists, including from the CSIRO, have been so bold as to falsely claim even the Antarctic is warming.  Perhaps because they wanted to avoid appearing inconsistent or having to explain such an annoying exception to the generally accepted global warming trend over the last 100 or so years. [2]

Now the prestigious journal Nature has published an article explaining that the Antarctic has been generally warming and at about the same rate as the rest of the planet.  [3]  This news made the cover of the latest issue of the journal with a dramatic graphic illustration of the new reconstruction of Antarctic surface temperature trends for 1957–2006.

[Read more…] about Modellers Remove Evidence of Cooling and Editor Removes Comment by Climate Sceptic

Barack Obama’s Inaugural Speech

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“To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”   Read more here.

To Dump Iron Sulphate in the Southern Ocean, or Not

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YOUR concept of nature is almost certainly going to influence whether you support the idea of a German ship dumping 20 tons of iron sulphate over 300 square kilometres of Southern Ocean to provoke a massive algal bloom for carbon sequestration.

Those who subscribe to the idea that earth systems are delicately balanced are likely to be horrified and may want to send off a letter to the German government as suggested by Climate Ark to stop the experiment.   The ship is already in the Southern Ocean and ready to dump.   

Those, who, like Paleontologist Peter Ward, reject the notion of ‘Gaia’, and subscribe to the ‘The Medea Hypothesis’ that there is no balance of nature are likely to favor geo-engineering solutions including to climate change.   [Gaia versus Medea discussed here.]

I tend to fall into a third category, recognising that natural systems are dynamic and also generally fairly resilient.  I would not advocate large scale geo-engineering unless the problem was well defined and the benefits clearly articulated.   

As regards dumping tons of iron sulphate in the Southern Ocean – if an excess of carbon in the atmosphere really is a problem then it is perhaps justified as part of a mix of potential solutions.  But I am not convinced that the elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are causing a problem.