Go into a party of lefties in New York and tell them the science on global warming doesn’t stack up. They don’t say, ‘Good Lord, what a relief, I thought we were in for it.’ Instead they get very cross with you. They’re terribly attached to their apocalypse and don’t take kindly to people rocking the boat. Read more here.
Opinion
How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones (Part 6)
Dr David Jones, the head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, recently attributed a decline in Melbourne’s rainfall to global warming. Amongst various comments, he claimed in The Age that the autumn drying trend could be linked to either human-induced climate change through greenhouse gases or changes in the ozone layer over Antarctica.
Ockham’s Razor, the principle proposed by William of Ockham in the fourteenth century: “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate”, which translates as “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” would require that Dr Jones choose one or the other theory, greenhouse gases or depletion of the ozone layer, as an explanation for the decline in rainfall.
But does either theory really represents much more than speculation?
Indeed lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledged just after the release of their last big report that until major oscillations in the Earth System, including El Nino-Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, are better understood regional climate, and in particular regional rainfall, is a difficult problem.
Furthermore, there are perhaps other simpler explanations for the recent decline in rainfall.
Indeed Dr Jones recently confirmed that his comments in The Age were based on data from just one weather station: a site in Melbourne’s central business district.
This brings us back to Part 1 of this series in which Bill Kininmonth, a meteorologist formerly with the Bureau, made comment that “the rain gauge in Melbourne’s central business district is now sheltered from the rain bearing winds of the southwest”.
Carbon Dioxide as the Innocent Bystander
“We need to consider the very real possibility that carbon dioxide – which is necessary for life on Earth and of which there is precious little in the atmosphere – might well be like the innocent bystander who has been unjustly accused of a crime based upon little more than circumstantial evidence.” Read more here.
Cosmic Rays, Clouds and Climate (Part 2)
THERE is a theory that the earth’s climate is influenced by cosmic rays that penetrate our atmosphere from outer space. In particular it is thought cosmic rays influence the production of cloud condensation nuclei with periods of higher cosmic rays penetration associated with more cloudiness. The power of what is known as the solar wind, the magnetic force associated with the sun, is thought to influence the extent to which these high-energy charged particles composed of protons, electrons, and ionized nuclei reach earth.
The theory has been based to a large extent on correlations between climate and sunspot cycles. There is now a research effort to establish a physically-plausible link between cosmic rays, clouds and climate including through laboratory experiments in clouding at the Cern Cloud Facility in, Geneva, Switzerland. The theory and the experiments are explained in ‘Cosmic Rays and Climate’ by Jasper Kirkby, Surveys in Geophysics, Volume 28, pages 333-375.
I know of no equivalent research effort looking at establishing a causal link between carbon dioxide and climate.
This paper by Dr Kirby was first discussed here in a blog post by Paul Biggs on May 21 this year. I’ve only just properly discovered it – and thought it so good you should read about it a second time. I posted ‘Cosmic Rays, Clouds and Climate (Part 1)’ on April 13, 2008.
Ten Worst Blog Posts: A Note from Cohenite
EVER since public computer networks burst onto the scene in the 1980’s, the subject of online content has been a controversial one, explained Mark Newton at e-journal On Line Opinion last week. A few months ago, 30 July 2008, John Stewart on Australian ABC television’s Lateline described online blogs as one of the few places where the science of climate change is still debated. Now, occasional blogger, Cohenite, has come up with the 10 worst climate blog posts on the basis, “they all represent a denial of not only the intrinsic transparency of the web but also the openness necessary for scientific debate and to this extent they reveal that at least part of this debate about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is not about science, but its suppression.”
Here goes, the ten worst, according to Cohenite:
1. On April 16, 2008, at a blog called ‘Open Mind’, the prince of AGW, he who is known as Tamino, posted a piece entitled ‘Perjury’. Tamino’s basis for the charge of perjury was that someone had claimed there had been a temperature decline since 1998. [Read more…] about Ten Worst Blog Posts: A Note from Cohenite
Wishful Thinking on Carbon Trading
Last week the Australian Treasury released modelling of the likely impact of an Emissions Trading Scheme. All the scenarios assume the rest of the world will sign-up. Read more here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.