Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Opinion

Do Glaswegians Mostly Breathe Nitrogen?

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I wonder how many of the approximately 30,000 ‘special’ people who are on their way to Glasgow for COP26 know that 78 per cent of the atmosphere is made-up of nitrogen. I asked this question of a group of retired professionals just yesterday and there was silence. My second question was about oxygen and a retired airline pilot answered correctly: she said that 21 per cent of the atmosphere is oxygen.

My late father was an agronomist who once worked for CSIRO and for a period led aid programs in different parts of Southeast Asia – he always used to say that his big issue was working out how to get more nitrogen into the soil because it was so important for plant growth.

I just asked my husband – a chemist who once worked in pulp and paper – what the cardboard box on the floor beside my desk would be composed of. He ventured about 40 per cent carbon, 40 per cent oxygen,10 per cent hydrogen and 10 per cent other elements. The box is empty so inside it would be about 78 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen with trace amounts of carbon dioxide.

While few people seem to know that carbon dioxide makes up only 0.04 per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere, I’m often told that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas: FACT!

They do shout the bit about it being a ‘fact’, as though that makes it special because it proves that carbon dioxide is warming the Earth. But it doesn’t. The fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas is meaningless if we don’t place this in some context given the complexity of real-world physics and chemistry when it comes to climate change.

There are other greenhouse gases, including water vapour which spectroscopy has shown to be 12 times more active than carbon dioxide in long-wave radiation absorption and re-radiation. This is because water vapour is both more abundant and absorbs the long-wave radiation over a larger band of wavelengths.

An important research paper published 20 years ago by Richard Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou and Arthur Hou (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 81) contradicts the popular IPCC-endorsed theory that water vapour concentrations increase with atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, causing a positive feedback and thus more global warming as the consensus theory goes. Specifically, Lindzen et al. showed that the area of upper-level cirrus cloud decreased as temperatures increased in the tropics, providing negative feedback that cancels any positive water-vapour feedback.

I know this is more information than most people who want to be an expert on carbon dioxide care to think about. In fact, even those who are experts on carbon dioxide and climate change would prefer not to know about the Lindzen et al. 2001 paper. The response to that paper was for the editor of that publication, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, to be immediately replaced. The next issue of the Bulletin contained an attack, not in the form of a letter (to which Richard Lindzen would have immediately replied had he been given an opportunity) but as a separate article (Hartmann & Michelsen 2002). The title of the article was ‘No Evidence for Iris’, with the new editor appending a subtitle ‘Careful analysis of data reveals no shrinkage of tropical cloud anvil area with increasing sea surface temperature (SST)’. This rebuttal muddled Lindzen et al.’s method but did have a compelling title.

Facts often need context, but in the case of world-wide polar bear numbers it is straightforward: since bans on hunting were introduced in the 1970s numbers have increased from about 10,000 in the late 1960s to an official estimate of 26,000 in 2015. Surveys conducted since then, by those reluctant to report a further increase, suggest a modest 28,500 bears. When estimates for subpopulations are added to this, the more realistic number becomes 39,000 – that could be rounded to 40,000. 

The bottom-line is that despite a reduction in sea ice at the North Pole over this same period, there has been an increase in polar bear numbers. Which is good news that runs contrary to the zeitgeist. 

Successful Australian businesswoman Gina Rinehart reported the increase in polar bear numbers in a lecture she gave to her former girls’ school; it sent the ‘fact’ checkers at the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) into a spin resulting in a long essay that was short on facts and big on snow. How dare Ms Rinehart – whose profits from mining fund them – have an opinion on bears. I suspect Twiggy Forest is allowed to have an opinion on bears because he knows better than to explain that despite a decrease in the amount of ice at the North Pole, polar bear numbers have been increasing.

It is a fact that over the last few decades there has been an overall decrease in the amount of ice at the North Pole, but there has been a contrasting increase in the amount of ice at the South Pole. It is also a fact that should all the remaining ice melt at the North Pole it will have hardly any effect on global sea levels because it is sea ice not land ice. Should all the ice melt at the South Pole, well this could cause global sea levels to rise by some 70 metres. So, we might be grateful that it is trending as it is, with more ice at the South Pole even though there are no polar bears there. But whenever I talk about the South Pole to those wishing they were off to Glasgow I’m told I should be talking about the North Pole as though I am trying to trick them with any mentions of the South Pole.

Just yesterday I was told that what is most important is not that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas or the amount of new ice accumulating at the South Pole, but that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing. When I ventured that this could be a consequence of increasing temperatures I was shouted at. Specifically, I was told that while atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide-increase does lag behind temperature increases, this is not relevant, and this does not prove that carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas. I had to write that down to check I wasn’t missing something, that I was being thrown a non sequitur.

It is difficult having a rational and logical discussion with a true believer. I suspect they get very emotional very quickly, because climate change is a topic to which they are very attached, while knowing really very little about. It is something like an infatuation – not to be scrutinised, lest the feeling dissipates, and the individual find themselves all alone again and without a cause.

If none of this makes sense to you, it is probably a good thing that you are not going to Glasgow where they could probably be convinced that 78 per cent of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide and 21 per cent oxygen with this percentage rapidly declining with every new coal fired power station.
If you do want a day-by-day account of what is happening in Glasgow consider signing up to the IPA’s daily newsletter for the period of COP26, Net Zero.

Each of these daily newsletters will include commentary from Aynsley Kellow who is Professor Emeritus of Government, University of Tasmania, and author of Negotiating Climate Change: A Forensic Analysis and Transforming Power: The Politics of Electricity Planning – and an all-round sensible fellow. Following is his contribution just yesterday:

Australia has an embarrassment of riches. It possesses vast resources of high quality coal, both coking coal (for iron ore production) and steaming coal (for energy production), with low sulphur and low ash. Much of it can be mined at low cost by open cut methods. This endowment has become an embarrassment because coal combustion gives rise to the emission of the highest levels of CO2 of all the fossil fuels. Australia exports both large quantities of coal and of energy-intensive products like aluminium, so that emissions occur here rather than in consuming nations.

On the other hand, Australia has a vast land area and a dispersed, though comparatively centralised, (growing) population, so transportation requires more energy than is the case with many other nations, with fossil fuels powering this.

Both these factors make reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia difficult and relatively costly. How should it respond to the challenge of anthropogenic climate change?

Many Australians are under the impression that it can meet the challenge easily and cheaply. ALP leader Anthony Albanese stated in an interview on 20 October 2021, that renewables were now the cheapest form of electricity, suggesting that wind generators, solar panels and electric transportation would make the response an easy one.

But this was wrong – and typical of the mistaken beliefs of many renewables enthusiasts.

Non-hydro renewables have indeed become much cheaper when measured by what is called the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE), (which is a tool used to do comparisons, see here for example) although spot prices of the polysilicon used to make solar panels have increased six-fold in the past year, thanks largely to the energy problems that have beset China and elsewhere. But LCOE misses many of the disadvantages and costs of renewables in an electricity system. What matters is the System Levelised Cost of Energy, and when this is considered, renewables cannot compete. Moreover, while their cost has declined markedly, the cost curve for both wind and solar has followed that typical of new technologies and flattened out – suggesting most of the cost reductions have already accrued.

The problems with renewables stem from the fact that they are intermittent and weather-dependent. Solar cannot produce electricity at night and its output is reduced when there is heavy cloud – such as that which crashed the network in Alice Springs a year or so back. Wind is variable and ‘wind droughts’ can occur for hours or even days.

A heavily renewables system requires storage, and storage Is expensive, driving its cost above coal. Storage is necessary on an inter-day as well as intra-day basis, and even inter-seasonal. The capacity factor of renewables is often 25-30 per cent, so to meet average demand a generating capacity of three or four times the average is required – in fact more, because storage and discharge is often of the order of 85 per cent efficient, so storage consumes perhaps 15 per cent.

Storage is expensive. The US group Environmental Progress has calculated that it would require 15,280 storage centres the size of the largest existing in the US to provide 4 hours back-up for the US grid at a cost $764 billion, and 696 Hornsdale (South Australian) batteries are required to provide just 4 hours of backup power for the Australian grid. But that is only intra-day storage. What of inter-day storage?

The United Kingdom has recently had to fire up a retired coal-fired station because of a shortage of gas (especially inadequate storage capacity) and problems with the cable that allows it to draw on France’s predominantly nuclear capacity. But it has also experienced a prolonged period of very low winds – lots of what the Germans call a Dunkelflaute (dark doldrums) days.

This prompted Professors Peter Edwards and Peter Dobson and Dr Gari Owen to calculate the cost of backup required for a 50 per cent renewables UK and a 100 per cent renewables UK. Their estimate for 50 per cent was £1.5Trillion ($A2.75T) and £3T ($A5.5T) for 100 per cent renewables. If anything, this was an underestimate, because it assumed 100 per cent efficiency of storage. But, of course, it was assumed that there was adequate excess renewable generation capacity pre-Dunkelflaute to charge the battery storage. (It should be noted that the UK system is of the same order of magnitude as that of Australia, but has fewer solar resources).

Renewables also incur substantial network costs. Non-hydro renewables have a very low density and considerable land-use requirements. To transmit the energy generated – which is Direct Current (DC) and must be run through an inverter to synchronise with the Alternating Current (AC) grid frequency – vast additional transmission resources are required, and must be capable of coping with peak generation, but with only 25-30 per cent utilisation. (Because of the DC rather than AC issue, a largely renewables system lacks the inertia of a traditional electricity system which is underloaded with a ‘spinning reserve’ to cope with fluctuations in generation or load; the presence of high levels of renewables on the system requires batteries like the one in South Australia to stabilise voltage and frequency).

Moreover, if renewable electricity is to replace petroleum fuels for transportation (directly or in hydrogen fuels), huge amounts of additional capacity will be required.

Any sensible energy policy must consider all sources: nuclear, hydro, renewables and coal. Simply writing coal out of the equation because it generates the most CO2 per unit of electricity is simplistic foolishness. Technological advances mean that coal-fired electricity can produce cheap, reliable electricity with substantially lower GHG emissions, and therefore reduce Australia’s emissions if it were to replace existing plants. (It is also significant for developing countries, which are likely to want to industrialise and do so economically).

GE is now marketing advanced ultra-supercritical (AUSC) technology, calling it SteamH. SteamH combines steam plant technology operating with advanced ultra-supercritical conditions and a digital power plant data platform called Predix. GE claims 49.1 per cent efficiency for AUSC, and the first plant, Pingshan power plant phase two in China of 1350MW was commissioned in December 2020. The average efficiency of the existing global coal fleet is 34 per cent, and every 1 per cent improvement in efficiency can reduce GHG emissions by 2–3 per cent. So AUSC could reduce emissions from coal-fired power stations by 30–45 per cent if they were replaced by best available technology.

Unfortunately, current Australian policy settings effectively preclude the construction of an AUSC station, and a crunch is looming. As noted above, the LCOE of renewables is usually quoted, but the effect of expanding renewables capacity on the reliable, dispatchable system is being ignored. In point of fact, the expansion of renewables is cannibalising the dispatchable capacity, because it is effectively parasitic on the system.

The economics of renewables in a traditional, dispatchable system is well established. While the value of renewables initially increases, its value declines as its share of total generation increases. Australia’s renewables share has now passed 20 per cent and the value of additional renewables capacity will in future decline considerably as backup and network cost accumulate. Coal cannot compete with subsidised, privileged near zero marginal cost renewables, so lower capacity factors destroy the value of existing generation plant.

In addition to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and economics of different energy sources it is also important to note their resource requirements, life cycle impacts and other environmental impacts. For example, it has been estimated that the installation of sufficient wind turbines to meet US demand would increase the surface temperature of the country by 0.24°C mostly at night (when the increase would be 1.5°C).

But the really telling evaluation of renewables is in their resource impacts, especially compared with nuclear energy. For the same energy production, solar energy requires about 450 times the land area of nuclear and wind 400 times. Wind requires seven times the amount of concrete of nuclear, and solar about two and a-half times. Each of them requires about 17 times as much steel. Add in copper for generators and transmission.

What also must be considered is the energy consumed in the production of renewables, much of it in China where most PV panels and many wind turbines are manufactured, using coal-fired energy. Moreover, the manufacture of PV panels releases solvents such as sulphur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride, with Global Warming Potential numbers about 20,000 times that of CO2.

When it comes to the end of economic life, solar panels produce 300 times the amount of waste as does nuclear energy, and both wind and solar are made of composite materials that are difficult to recycle, so most are currently sent to landfill. Both are at risk from extreme weather, and catastrophic failure of wind turbines is well-documented.
Then there is the well-documented impact on birds and bats, an impact that extends to solar thermal generation, where the focused sunlight turns unwary birds into ‘streamers’.

A balanced energy policy must consider all sources and all their advantages and disadvantages – including all environmental impacts.

Looking only at coal-fired electricity generation without considering best available technology or the GHG emissions related to renewables regardless of where they are released is not a wise climate change policy.

Simplistic responses such as attempting to ban coal simply opens the door for rent seekers who have invested in the alternatives while shutting another door – that to economic development for the millions who lack access to affordable energy and the opportunity for the prosperity we take for granted.

Thanks for reading this far.
Dr Jennifer Marohasy

PS Thanks to Dr Arthur Day – who is also contributing to the daily newsletter – for the chart that features at the very top of this note. It does seem to be the case that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are unaffected by all the meetings and also the reduction in air travel due to Covid, etc. Could it be that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing because of ocean degassing and this has absolutely nothing to do with us? It is what would be expected from the solubility curve of carbon dioxide in water. Some of the little bumps on the line can be traced to volcanic events with the oceans scavenging any excess carbon dioxide from volcanic events within about 2 years.

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This was written for my monthly e-newsletter and is republished here by popular request. If you want to be sure to get something from me once a month in your inbox, then subscribe to my e-news, by clicking here and then scrolling down.

The Idea of Academic Freedom, Explained by Stone and Forrest*

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Does the principle of academic freedom protect Australian academics who engage in pointed public criticism of their academic colleagues, and university governance? A case in the High Court this week provides a rare opportunity to consider academic freedom in Australian universities.

The case has its origins in an academic dispute about the threat climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef. Peter Ridd, a professor at James Cook University, believed his academic colleagues at a research centre at the University and at a partner institution, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, overstated the risk.

In comments to print journalists and in appearances on television, Ridd criticised reports produced by those researchers as flawed and untrustworthy. Specifically, he said that his colleagues knew they were ‘likely … telling a misleading story’, and that they would ‘wiggle and squirm’ under questioning.

A disciplinary process began. Ridd was directed to maintain the confidentiality of the process and, more unusually, not to ‘trivialise’, ‘satirise’ or ‘parody’ the process. Perhaps predictably, Ridd ignored these directions and continued both to publicise and disparage the proceedings against him. After two formal censures, the University terminated Ridd’s employment.

Ridd’s action against the University succeeded in the Federal Circuit Court but that judgment was overturned on appeal by the Full Federal Court. This week, the High Court heard Ridd’s final appeal.

There has been a lot of media focus in recent years on freedom of speech in universities. But this case raises questions about a related but distinct idea: academic freedom. That is, the case concerns the freedom of academics to discuss their field of research and to challenge the work of others as part of the process of academic inquiry. This freedom is unique to universities and protects their core and most important function: the advancement of knowledge through teaching and research.

The academic freedom issue is contained within a more prosaic legal question. At its core it concerns the interaction between two employment instruments. The first, the University’s Enterprise Agreement, contains a commitment to ‘intellectual freedom’ and provides staff rights to, for example, pursue critical inquiry, participate in debate, and express opinions, including on university operations and policy. The right to express opinions extends to expressing ‘unpopular or controversial views’ but not to harassing, vilifying, bullying or intimidating those who disagree. The second is the University’s Code of Conduct. Among other things, the Code obliges staff to treat fellow staff with ‘courtesy’ and ‘respect’ and to uphold the University’s reputation.

Neither instrument is unusual. Similar or equivalent instruments are found in many other Australian universities. In simple terms, the question in the case is: do these conflict, and if so, which instrument gives way to the other? Ridd, of course, argues that the commitment to intellectual freedom contained in the Enterprise Agreement is the primary commitment. The University argues that there is no conflict and that the Code is fully consistent with the Enterprise Agreement.

It is not a simple question, and there is not space in this piece to address the legal complexities of the case in full. In our view, the resolution of the legal question requires returning to the more fundamental idea: academic freedom. It has a long provenance and internationally well-recognised elements, including:
1. the freedom of academics to freely research, critically inquire and teach;
2. autonomy of universities; and
3. the involvement of academics in university governance, whether through formal participation in governance or through the freedom to criticise university governance.

While the way in which these principles are implemented necessarily varies, the principles themselves are well-recognised in Australia including by the Independent Review conducted by former Chief Justice Robert French into freedom of speech in universities and in the very law which established James Cook University.

The commitment to ‘intellectual freedom’ found in the Enterprise Agreement must be understood against this backdrop. The rights comprising the commitment to ‘intellectual freedom’ are entirely familiar elements of the principle of academic freedom. The use of the term ‘intellectual freedom’ indicates not a narrowing or rejection of the principle of ‘academic freedom’ but an expansion: in the Enterprise Agreement, the principle of academic freedom is extended beyond academic staff to include non-academic staff.

With that in mind, the commitment to ‘intellectual freedom’ is better understood as the primary commitment, to which the obligations of the Code must give way in some circumstances. This view gives priority to the core purposes of a university, and the practical realities of the exercise of academic freedom. Some essential expressions of academic freedom, such as allegations of academic fraud or of university mismanagement or maladministration, are simply unavoidably discourteous and reputation threatening.

Here, Ridd’s conduct, however unpleasant, involved the exercise of two important elements of the principle of academic freedom: the expression of opinions on scientific matters, and criticism of university governance.

As a matter of principle, limits on such expressions of academic freedom should be rare, carefully confined and very well justified. Neither inconvenience, irritation, disputation between colleagues, nor the embarrassment of university partners is justification enough. Given the importance of the principle of the academic freedom, the burden on justifying restrictions to it should be very heavy indeed. In this case, that burden was not met.

*This article by Adrienne Stone and Joshua Forest was first published by Graham Young at On Line Opinion, click here, and is republished here with permission. Adrienne Stone is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Melbourne and the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow. Joshua Forrest is Research Associate at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School.

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The feature image was taken by Clint Hempsall in January 2020 at a place called Gotham City, which is a well known dive site at The Ribbon Reefs. It shows Red Bass and Giant Trevally circling the top of a bombie before one smashed corals to extract a smaller fish, its prey.

My Atheism Denies Hell, But Applauds Mary McKillop

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MY late father told me not to admit that I was an atheist … when I was preparing to appear on the ABC television program ‘Q&A’ back in October 2010.

It was likely that Tony Jones would ask me a question about Mary McKillop being made a saint, as this was a media headline back then.

Through history atheists have been vilified.

During the nineteenth century in Britain, for example, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing a pamphlet explaining his atheism. At the time, those unwilling to swear Christian oaths during judicial proceedings were unable to give evidence in court.

Nowadays, atheism is tolerated in the West, but not in many Muslim countries where atheists are sentenced to death — presumably with the assumption he/she is going to hell. In these countries atheism is often confused with apostasy, which is defined as the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle.

I’ve never actually embraced a religion — though I was raised in the Presbyterian tradition — so I’m not sure how I could renounce it.

The idea that someone like myself simply does not believe is very difficult for many/most people to accept. But it is a fact. I’ve always looked to nature, not the Bible, for answers to the big questions. So, I’m fascinated by natural landscapes, which I feel always provide me with some solace, as well as understanding.

The coastline where I live at Noosa, for example, has a history that dates back perhaps 145 million years. I’m referring to the dolorite intrusion to the north of Granite Bay. Tea Tree Bay, just to the north again, has interesting wave cut platforms of sandstone, with abrasions called potholes – by geologists. I’m keen for a knowledgable geologist to explain how old these formations in this level bedrock are likely to be (see the feature image for this blog post) and what they might tell us about sea level change.

It is a fact the etching in a shoreline hold history, and meaning, for some people – myself included.

This does not mean I am in any way intolerant of those who believe in the presence of a God. When Tony Jones did ask me about miracles back in 2010, I replied:

JENNIFER MAROHASY: Like the Prime Minister [who back then was Julia Gillard], I don’t believe in miracles but I do think that it is important that we have heroes and Mary McKillop is a hero for a lot of people, particularly within the Catholic faith and I’m very pleased that for those Australians their hero is being recognised and being recognised in the Vatican and I understand that Mary McKillop stood up against paedophilia within the church and I think it’s wonderful that the Catholic Church is not only recognising a woman but an Australian and somebody who has stood up to issues that didn’t necessarily make her popular back then.

So, while I’m an atheist I respect the beliefs held by others, including Christians and Muslims.

There is a media preoccupation at the moment in Australia with the footballer Israel Folau who was sacked from the Australian team for claiming that all homosexuals, and also atheists, are going to hell.

I understand that such a claim is likely to be more offensive to a homosexual who may also be a Christian, than to an atheist who does not believe in the concept of hell. Nevertheless, I suggest that homosexuals as well as atheists be tolerant of his perspective. In fact, I thank him for having the fortitude to be so upfront in what I perceive as his ignorance. Surely, it is better that the ignorant man tell us what he is thinking so that we can have some discussion about this, least he keep the untruth to himself and let it fester.

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The photograph is of me, and some potholes etched into Tea Tree Bay, Noosa National Park, and was taken with my new drone (Skido) in June 2019.

Unsettled Malcolm Roberts queries United Nation’s science

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THERE is nothing new under the sun according to both the Bible and Shakespeare; and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts would not purport to be the first to claim the atmosphere cools the surface of the earth that is warmed by the sun. He stated this in his maiden speech in the Australian parliament on Tuesday. Apparently perplexed by the concept, Guardian Australia’s environmental reporter Michael Slezak, could have sought expert advice, but instead he rephrased the statement concluding that Roberts’ was wrong because “the atmosphere is not freezing”. Another journalist, Latika Bourke writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, was less inclined to provide her own expert commentary, instead simply concluding that this statement (that the atmosphere cools the surface of the earth that is warmed by the sun) places Roberts at odds with the world’s leading scientific and research bodies including NASA, the CSIRO, and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Image courtesy of the Guardian
Image courtesy of the Guardian

Yet it is generally acknowledged that approximately 51% of incoming solar energy is absorbed by the land and oceans, and that winds will move heat around via convection such that some areas are cooled; then of course there is evaporation.

But did Slezak and Bourke assume Roberts meant something else with his statement, or do they really believe that because the atmosphere contains carbon dioxide it must be hotter than the earth? We ask this, because Roberts did go on to immediately state in his speech: “How can anything that cools the surface warm it? It can’t.” Given Roberts’ professional training as an engineer, he would most likely have been referring to the second law of thermodynamics as originally formulated which states, heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time. This is somewhat intuitive, yet the concept does appear at odds with IPCC science. How can anything that cools the surface warm it? It can’t.

Indeed, one of the key arguments put forward by the IPCC and its supporting teams, is that half of the radiation from greenhouse gases (chiefly carbon dioxide and water vapour), is directed downwards (sometimes referred to as back radiation) causing warming of the earth’s surface; and that this effect increases as the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases.

The IPCC mantra, which replaces any detailed scientific analysis of the spectral behaviour of these active gases, appears in the “scientific” section of the IPCC report AR4 (2007) and subsequently in the CSIRO’s own report of that year, “Climate Change in Australia – 2007”. The report simply states: “We believe that most of the increase in the global temperature during the latter part of the twenty first century, was very likely due to the increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

Roberts made the point in his maiden speech that from the 1930’s to the 1970’s – during the period of the greatest industrialisation in human history when our carbon dioxide output increased greatly – atmospheric temperatures actually cooled for forty years straight. At least this cooling trend is evident in some unadjusted global temperature series, and this is at odds with the CSIRO and IPCC claim that temperatures were generally trending up during the 20th Century. Currently there is arguably an approximately 18 year pause in global temperatures, as measured by NASA’s own UAH satellite-record of global temperature change in the lower atmosphere.

In fact, while not disputing that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, applying an alternative model to that used in IPCC science it is possible to show how an increase in carbon dioxide could cause global cooling.

The standard hypothesis has, at its core, the unproven assumption that the heat-energy absorbed by the increase in carbon dioxide distributed throughout the atmosphere, leads to re-radiation with half of this re-radiation directed downwards – such that the temperature of the earth’s surfaces, both solid (land) and liquid (ocean), are increased. That the corresponding, increased, concentration in layers below those radiating, will simultaneously increase the re-absorption of such radiation, thus reducing the heating effect to an insignificant level, is ignored. Yet this is what calculations by university physicists and engineers shows, contrary to IPCC “science”. In addition, the higherconcentration of this same energy in this region of denser greenhouse gas, will raise the temperature of the local air sample, giving rise to enhanced convection, an effect which leads, in general, to very slightly increased lateral winds, and thus increased surface cooling.

At high altitudes, the greenhouse gases provide the only mechanism for the radiation of heat from the atmosphere to space – the other main constituents of oxygen and nitrogen being unable to do so because of their electronic structures. At these heights, the rarefied absorbers, situated above the radiating layers, are less able to re-absorb the radiation which consequentially escapes to space, thus providing a mechanism of cooling for the earth. Yes, cooling.

Indeed, increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in these strata of very low pressure, results in increased outwards radiation not balanced by the re-absorption! Hence increased carbon dioxide – ironic as it may sound to the lay person – will result in more efficient cooling of the earth. This was a point made perhaps too subtlety by Roberts, and clearly not understood by those reporting upon his maiden speech.

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This article was first published at On Line Opinion

 

Patrick Moore has Nothing New to Offer

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HIS greatest claim to fame is that he co-founded Greenpeace. Not something I would be proud of. Of course, I’m referring to Patrick Moore. He is touring Australia at the moment and every other day I get a request from someone asking I promote the tour here, at this web blog.

Steve Kates heard Moore speak last night and wrote at Catallaxyfiles.com today that it was very “rewarding”. Kates also wrote that you may have heard it all before.

People generally have favourite stories that they like to hear repeated. These tend to be stories that give comfort, provide an escape – even make us feel smug.

Image from The Barnes & Noble Book Blog at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/10-reasons-we-reread-our-favorite-books/
Image from The Barnes & Noble Book Blog at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/10-reasons-we-reread-our-favorite-books/

I suspect that’s why people on our side of the global warming divide like to hear Moore: he cleverly articulates their prejudices even if he doesn’t actually say anything particularly new, or provide any real solutions.

If this was the extent of the experience I may have been inclined to provide some free advertising here, but Moore actually optimises everything that I find increasingly frustrating about being a sceptic who is trying to achieve something positive.

In my opinion very little progress has been made towards a new theory of climate, an alternative to anthropogenic global warming, because most sceptics, and also the institutions that support scepticism of anthropogenic global warming, won’t invest in the same. They prefer to claim we are dealing with an essentially chaotic system, rather than consider what a new theory of climate might actually include. Indeed at the recent Heartland Institute climate change conference, Moore went as far as to suggest that it was impossible to forecast rainfall and always would be. The inference is that there is no scientific answer to the big questions in climate science. I disagree.

Of course John Abbot and I have spent much of the last three years showing that it is possible to make skilful monthly rainfall forecasts, and we are beginning to document how and why in the peer-reviewed literature. But there is no interest in this research by those who are promoting Moore’s tour of Australia – perhaps because it’s about science, while their interest is essentially in the politics.

What is missed in all of this, and was missed by Moore in his answer to one of Steve Kates’ question last night, is that there is a way to defeat “green policies” that are not scientifically-based, including policies derived from the theory of anthropogenic global warming. The answer is in promoting and supporting alternatives, because, as I wrote in the IPA Review last year, history shows that failed scientific paradigms are only ever replaced, they are never disproven until there is a replacement theory. [last six words added Sunday morning, following a comment from Pat Frank]

Sydney Morning Herald not balanced, not fair, not factual

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ON 10th September 2014, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article suggesting that I was an amateur, hostile to climate science and in denial. When I attempted to respond by way of an opinion piece, I was told there was no space. That I would not be published. Jen rain

I’ve just lodged a complaint with the Australian Press Council. They only allow 400 words by way of ‘reason for complaint’. I’ve provided the following reasoning:

Michael Brown’s article ‘Pseudoscience and nonsense reign once science is left behind in climate debate’, published by the Sydney Morning Herald on 10th September 2014, is in breach of the Australian Press Council’s General Principles 1 and 3. In refusing to provide Jennifer Marohasy with an opportunity for reply The SMH is in breach of Principle 4.

There are four key errors of fact that combine to mislead the reader. Dr Brown claims Dr Marohasy has found “a few potential errors” in the homogenisation process as implemented by the Bureau. In fact Dr Marohasy has shown that the homogenisation process as implemented by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is flawed because it can result in changes to both the direction and magnitude of temperature trends. Dr Brown claims Dr Marohasy has cherry-picked a few unrepresentative examples. The examples provided by Dr Marohasy are real, valid, and illustrate the potential impact of homogenisation, which is to mislead the public on climate change. Dr Brown claims that Australia continues to warm and the warming temperature trend is clear in raw and homogenised data for 100 years. In fact Australian and global average surface air temperature has remained more or less steady since 2001 (e.g. Nature Climate Change, volume 4, pages 222-227).

Dr Brown describes Jennifer Marohasy as a “plucky amateur”. Dr Marohasy is not an amateur. Indeed Dr Brown has also omitted key facts in particular that Dr Marohasy is an adjunct research fellow at Central Queensland University with several recent peer-reviewed publications in climate science.

Dr Marohasy submitted an opinion piece correcting some key errors of fact on 15th September 2014. On 16th September she was advised that it would not be published.

In publishing Dr Brown’s opinion, but refusing to publish Dr Marohasy’s rebuttal, the Sydney Morning Herald is continuing to withhold important information from the Australian public, in particular most Australians remain ignorant of the fact that all the data used to calculate national temperature trends is homogenised, that this can have an impact on both the magnitude and direction of temperature trends. Furthermore in publishing an article that suggests Dr Marohasy is “hostile” to climate science, practices “pseudoscience”, is in “denial”, and performs “sloppy” work, the Sydney Morning Herald is not only misleading its readers, but also defaming Dr Marohasy.

I would have thought that in the interests of balance, fairness and keeping their readership across the issue that the Herald could have simply published the opinion piece that I submitted. This article follows:

Evidence and transparency is important in science

If some technocrats had their way, it would be accepted practice to routinely alter historical temperature records, particularly if those records did not accord with global warming theory.

I have complained for some time about the practice of homogenisation undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. My concerns were mostly ignored until I gave a lecture at the Sydney Institute in July. There, I described how cooling trends at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland and the post office at Bourke in New South Wales have been changed into warming trends through homogenisation.

More recently, I provided The Australian with an example from an agricultural research station outside Rutherglen in north-eastern Victoria. Since 1912, a weather station there has observed an overall cooling trend. Rather than incorporate this cooling into the official record, the Bureau has applied algorithms that have flipped the cooling trend of 0.35 degrees Celsius into a warming trend of 1.73 degrees Celsius.

Homogenisation may legitimately be used in climate science to correct for anomalies in data when stations are relocated from one site to another. The Bureau claims that the Rutherglen station was moved in the 1960s or 1970s. Yet there is no evidence to suggest it was ever moved. Even if it were so, this does not explain why the record for, say, 1913 is a full 1.8 degrees Celsius cooler in the modified and homogenised data than in the original.

The overall effect of manmade global warming is estimated to be 0.8 degrees Celsius over the last century. If so, homogenisation has the potential to create a highly distorted impression of temperature trends.

That is only the start. When the entire instrumental record is considered, the very hottest years in Australia occurred in the late 1800s. Indeed the hottest year on record is perhaps 1878, and the hottest January was in 1896. This is not what we have been conditioned to believe, but it is what the data shows. The Sydney Morning Herald itself documented the heatwave of January 1896, reporting on the mass evacuation of affected residents by train from inland regions.

The Bureau believes that data prior to 1910 is unreliable for the purposes of the national record. The same Bureau, however, is happy to use that data for reporting global temperatures.

If we take those early records into account, it is clear that New South Wales experienced cooling from the late 1800s to about 1960. After 1960, temperatures across the state and the nation started to increase. This warming continued until it reached a plateau in 2002. Because the warming of the late twentieth century never completely negated the cooling of the early twentieth century, the overall net trend is actually one of cooling.

Peer-reviewed literature supports my contention that early twentieth century cooling was real and significant and that homogenisation creates an artificial warming trend in the official temperature record for Australia.

Yet last Wednesday in the opinion pages of the Sydney Morning Herald (Pseudoscience and nonsense reign once science is left behind in climate debate) Michael Brown, an astronomer from Monash University, argued that I had found merely “a few potential errors” in the data “while ignoring the fact that warming across Australia is seen in both raw and homogenised data”.

I have always been of the opinion that anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. Insisting on precision and transparency is not, as Dr Brown suggests, quackery, pseudoscience or “plucky amateurism”. It is the very essence of scientific method.

Unfortunately, we have reached a stage where consensus is driving the science, rather than science shaping the consensus.

It is often said that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our times. If so, the truth surely matters. Upholding the truth means respecting dissent. It requires careful and public scrutiny of information which does not conform to received wisdom.

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Dr Jennifer Marohasy is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Central Queensland University with six recent peer-reviewed publications in climate science focused on the application of artificial intelligence to rainfall forecasting. This research required Dr Marohasy to compile long temperature series for different locations as arrays for a neural network model, in the process she became interested in the methodology used by the Bureau of Meteorology in the compilation of an annual average temperature for Australia.

Sources, if required, for para beginning “The peer-reviewed literature”:
Deacon, E.L. 1952, Climatic Change in Australia since 1880, Australian Journal of Physics, Volume 6, Pages 209-218, see especially Figure 1 showing the ten-year running averages of mean summer maximum temperature for Bourke, Alice Springs Narrabri and Hay)

Trewin, B. 2013, A daily homogenized temperature data set for Australia, International Journal of Climatology, Volume 33, see especially page 1524)

Source, if required for para beginning “That is only the start”:

‘Excursion to Cool Climates’, January 25, 1896 and Extraordinary Heat at Wilcannia, January 18, 1896.