Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Opinion

Better Reason Than ‘Climate Change’ for Eating Kangaroo

By

The Australian government’s climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut, has suggested that reducing sheep and cattle numbers and replacing them with 175 million farmed kangaroos would help to dramatically reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Read more here. 

Yep.  The concept of a climate crisis can be used to justify all sorts of things.  

A problem for the kangaroo industry has been the lack of a reliable market in large part because of animal rights campaigning against the killing of this Australian icon, and cute and cuddly.  

The late Steve Irwin was against the idea of farming Australian native animals and supported a campaign that forced David Beckham to stop wearing kangaroo skin soccer boots.

There are better reasons than ‘climate change’ for eating what I have called ‘Nature’s natural bounty’ including kangaroo and also whale.  But we first need to overcome some of our cultural aversions.  Read more here.

More Problems with Computer Models: Our World is One of Novelty and Change

By

 

The risk of a climate crisis, like the risks associated with sub-prime mortgage securitisation, are calculated using complex computer models and both are too complex for the average punter to understand.  

 

As Graham Young wrote last week in a blog post entitled ‘Sub-prime and climate change’, these models were created by clever people with PhDs in maths and physics, but they are only as good as the information feed into them.  GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) is how he described both the climate models and the models that helped created the current credit crisis.   

 

 

According to Richard Mackey, a sceptic from Canberra, also writing on the issues of climate change and financial systems, a key limitation with both financial and climate models is the underlying false assumption that economic and climate systems are ergodic systems – that is they normalise to an equilibrium state. 

 

Richard Mackey wrote:

“One of the lethal critiques of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models is that the climate system can never be at anything like an equilibrium state. 

 All the models assume that the climate system normalises to an equilibrium state, the state modelled.  As the natural processes of the climate system are non-linear and non-ergodic, small variations may result in large changes. There are negative and positive feedback loops.  There is randomness in the system. As a result, the simple deterministic computer simulations on which all climate change projections are based will have little to do with the real world.

 

The econometric models of the Treasury are also equilibrium models.

 

They too assume that the economic system normalises to an equilibrium state, the state modelled by those models.

 

As Nobel Laureate, Douglass North, has demonstrated, the real world is vastly more complex that the simulated world of the models and is never in an equilibrium state, more precisely, never anywhere near such a state.

 

He argued that we live in a non-ergodic world and explained that an ergodic phenomenon has an underlying structure so stable theory that can be applied time after time, consistently, can be developed. 

 

In contrast, the world with which we are concerned is continually changing: it is continually novel. Inconsistency over time is a feature of a non-ergodic world.  The dynamics of change of the processes important to us are non-ergodic.  The processes do not repeat themselves precisely.  Douglass North argued that although there may be some aspects of the world that may be ergodic, most of the significant phenomena are non-ergodic.

 

Douglass North stressed that our capacity to deal with uncertainty effectively is essential to our succeeding in a non-ergodic world.  It is crucial, therefore, that the methodologies we use to understand the exceedingly complex phenomena measured in our time series, correctly inform us of the future uncertainty of the likely pattern of development indicated by the time series.” [end of quote]

 

***********

 

Additional Reading

 

 

 

In 1993 Douglass North, along with fellow economic historian, Robert W. Fogel, received the Noble Prize for Economics for pioneering work which resulted in the establishment of Institutional Economics, now a central school of modern economics.  There is a substantial economic literature that identifies the fatal flaws in the neoclassical deterministic equilibrium models that the Commonwealth Treasury uses and that Ross Garnaut will rely on to tell the Australian Government of the (almost certain) economic consequences of the (almost certain) predictions of the equilibrium climate models. 

 

North, D. C., 1999. Dealing with a Non Ergodic World: Institutional Economics, Property Rights, and the Global Environment. Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum Vol 10 No. 1 pps 1 to 12.

 

Professor North’s opening address at the Fourth Annual Cummings Colloquium on Environmental Law, at Duke University, April 30, 1999, is available on line here: Global Markets for Global Commons: Will Property Rights Protect the Planet?   

 

Classical time series analysis that features in the reports of the IPCC necessarily underestimates future uncertainty. Of great relevance here is that two scientists at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Melbourne, Dr Murray Peel and Professor Tom McMahon, have recently shown that randomness in the climate system has been on the rise since the 1950s.  The authors used the time series analysis technique, Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), to quantify the proportion of variation in the annual temperature and rainfall time series that resulted from fluctuations at different time scales.  They applied EMD to annual data for 1,524 temperature and 2,814 rainfall stations from the Global Historical Climatology Network.

 

Peel, M and McMahon, T. A., 2006. Recent frequency component changes in interannual climate variability, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol.33, L16810, doi:10.1029/2006GL025670

 

Richard Mackey’s submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review is entitled ‘Much more to the Earth’s climate dynamics than human activity’ and can be read here. 

The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Consensus

By

“A pervasive myth has taken hold in the public consciousness: That there was a consensus among climate scientists of the 1970s that global cooling or a full-fledged ice age was imminent.”

 

At least that is according to Thomas Peterson, William Connolley and John Fleck writing in the proceedings of the 20th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, held in New Orleans in January this year.    Their paper goes a long way to dispel that myth while at the same time providing a good overview of the development of current global warming theory including key milestones.

 

It did perhaps all begin with the Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius, who in 1896 suggested that by doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide global temperature may rise 5-6C.

 

The establishment of the station atop Mauna Loa in the Pacific in 1957 was another key event.  According to Peterson et al by 1965 this data was sufficient to show an unambiguous trend of increasing carbon dioxide and showed an increase that exceeded Arrthenius’s 70-year old estimate. 

 

By 1967 the first seminal modelling results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Team were published concluding that a doubling of carbon dioxide would raise the temperature by 2C.  By 1975 based on new modelling results Wallace Broecker asked “Are we on the brink of pronounced global warming?” in a paper published in the journal Science (Vol 189, pgs 460-463).   

 

So, how did the myth of a consensus on global cooling take hold?

 

According to Peterson et al, when the myth of the 1970s global cooling scare arise in contemporary discussion, it is not to citations in the scientific literature but to news and media coverage at that time.  Furthermore they indicate that contemporary quoting of the media articles is often selective and out of context.

 

In their survey of the scientific literature from 1965 to 1983 Peterson et al found only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming.

 

It is a fascinating little paper, have a read:

http://ams.confex.com/ams/88Annual/techprogram/paper_131047.htm

 

[link from Luke Walker]

Dying, I’m Not: A Poem from the Murrumbidgee

By

I begin as a trickle, of melting snowflakes,

High in the mountains as Springtime awakes.

I ooze from the sedges, and springs neath the ground.

Drawn by gravity, it’s downward I’m bound.

I’m one of the elements of antiquity,

The basis of life, I begin clear and free.

It’s water I am, the compound H two O.

They say I am scarce, but it’s really not so.

Most abundant I am on this wonderful earth,

Without me nature, would have been a stillbirth.

 

 As I gurgle along, in my search for the sea,

I’ve been given a name, the Murrunbidgee.

Over rocks past Kiandra, I flow clear and free,

Then I nurture all life in our own A.C.T.

Because that is my votive, my reason for being,

The lifeblood of life, for everything living.

So sing in the rain, but save my runoff,

Lest in the future the rainfall’s far-off.

Though perpetual I am, I’m not here to waste,

For all life depends on my aquatic embrace.

 

With the Goodradigbee I rest, in old Barren Jack,

Before meandering through our arid outback.

‘Cross the Riverine plains, where for millions of years,

I’ve laid down a profile of rich earth veneers,

Just needing my lifeblood to grow and to bloom,

With the food for this world, before I resume,

My journey to where I’m joined by my brothers

That’s Lachlan and Murray, before nature ushers

Into our fold, the Darling, our sister you see;

For our journey of destiny, to our Mother the sea.

 But now I am ailing, but dying I’m not.

 

So what ailment afflicts me I now hear you ask?

Well believe not those, who all seem to bask,

In the self serving glory of media headlines.

Of pillage and plunder that always maligns,

Those who care most for my health and welfare.

These green charlatans all, who seem not to care,

That I’ve been infected with the terrible cancer,

Of European carp and they have not the answer.

For this ecological disaster that is ailing me so,

Now turbid and muddy, my reed beds don’t grow.

It’s ailing I am, but dying I’m not.

 

As I flow on to the lake, called Alexandrina.

I hereby refute what is claimed in the media.

My great river gums, are not dead or dying.

Of those who profess this, well frankly they’re lying.

These gnarled old eucalypts, survive without floods.

They’ve done so for decades, on just a few scuds.

It is only Mother Nature, can send floods so great.

That my dry lakes and wet lands begin to gestate,

With a food chain of plenty, that may last for years.

 Until drought once again, brings back the tears.

It’s ailing I am, but dying I’m not.

 

I now join my Mother the source of all life;

I’m cleaned and refreshed, away from lands strife.

Subsumed in the bounteous source of the clouds,

I begin a new journey as one of the shrouds.

Those cumulonimbus, cirrus, strata and all;

We race over the sea and become a snowfall,

On a high mountain pass I softly alight.

As a protective blanket, all fluffy and white.

I begin as a trickle, of melting snowflakes,

I’m now in the Andes as springtime awakes.

 

Pikey

Murrumbidgee Valley

New South Wales, Australia

Why Do Most Climate Skeptics Accept ‘The Consensus’ that Humans are the Principal Source of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels? (Part 1)

By

 

WE have all heard about the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.   Along with most people, I have accepted that this is mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels.  After-all, this is the accepted view, even for most so-called climate change skeptics.

 

But there is evidence indicating that most of the increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could be from natural sources.    

So, asks Alan Siddons from Holden, Massachusetts, why do most climate skeptics tacitly and even explicitly accept that man is the culprit?  

Let’s consider some of the available evidence. 

1.  Carbon dioxide concentrations have been measured at Mauna Loa in the Pacific Ocean since 1957 and over this period have shown a general increase.

 

2.  Over this period there has been a general increase in global temperatures.

 

3.  The change in carbon dioxide concentration with time correlates better with temperature change than with change in human carbon dioxide emissions (see Figures 2 and 3 @ Roy Spencer on how Oceans are Driving Carbon Dioxide,  Watts Up with That, January 25, 2008).

 

4.  Large interannual fluctuations in Mauna Loa-derived carbon dioxide “emissions” roughly coincide with El Nino and La Nina events (see Figure 3, ibid)

 

5.  There is a clear and strong relationship between levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and long-term average sea-surface temperatures as would be expected from the solubility curves for carbon dioxide in water at various temperatures and pressures (see Figure 1 @ Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels Follow Sea Surface Temperatures, Jennifer Marohasy.com/blog, September 16, 2007)

 

6.   Current carbon cycle flux estimates indicate that the annual carbon dioxide exchange between the surface and the atmosphere amounts to 20% to 30% of the total amount in the atmosphere. 

 

7.   Natural processes remove an order of magnitude more than the annual increase in carbon dioxide each year, then put it back again.

 

8.    Human generated carbon dioxide is around 3% of the total carbon dioxide flux.

 

9.  The isotope ratio difference between ‘natural’ carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is small and not a reliable indication of the source of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (see Spencer Part2: More CO2 Peculiarities – The C13/C12 Isotope Ratio, Watts Up With That? January 28, 2008)

 

***********************

The above nine points are drawn in part from posts by Roy Spencer at blog site ‘Watt’s Up with That?’ on January 25 and 28, 2008 and also a post by Lance Endersbee at JenniferMarohasy.com/blog on September 16, 2007.

Thanks to Alan Siddons for the discussion and the slide, which is from a Lord Monckton lecture. 

Bankrupt Lehman Brothers Promoted ‘Global Warming’ (Part 2)

By

 

The now bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers invested heavily in the politics of global warming and were hoping to make millions out of emissions trading.   In an earlier blog post entitled ‘Bankrupt Lehman Brothers Promoted Global Warming’ I suggested this was part of their undoing.   According to Graham Young the issue is not specific to Lehman Brothers, or global warming, but rather systemic, and it has everything to do with computers and modelling.

“In the real estate investment and development industry computer models never really took over. Valuation practice meant that valuers had to check their calculations by using at least two, and preferably three methods for comparison. Cost of construction and direct market comparisons didn’t negate computerised discounted cashflow models, but they did mean banks wouldn’t lend to you on the digital blue-sky valuations. The models might be right, but few lenders were prepared to risk their shirts on them.

 

“I know I soon realised that if it didn’t work on the back of an envelope, then making it work with a computer program was very dangerous.

 

“The same thing can’t be said for equity and credit markets, where asset pricing models for risk have taken over at the large ticket end of things. Which brings us to the sub-prime mess.

 

“Even though a cursory explanation of how the mortgage packages were structured sounds daft, the models said that they were fine. GIGO (garbage in garbage out) is the technical term for this. And the models were so complex, and the products they were used to produce so opaque, that no-one really knew the full risks of what they were “investing” in.

 

“And at the bottom of the pile, making all of this possible with abstract computerised models, were undoubtedly a lot of physics and maths graduates.

 

Which is pretty much where we are with climate change.”

 

Read more here:

http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/003396.html

 

 

*****************

Don’t forget there is a community thread at this blog.  Breaking news over there includes the retirement of Don Burke as chair of the Australian Environment Foundation.

https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2008/09/don-burke-retires-as-chair-of-the-australian-environment-foundation/