Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Opinion

White Possum Back from Extinction, but Now Possum Man Has Gone Bush

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LATE last year academic Stephen Williams, from James Cook University, reported that a rare species of white possum was possibly extinct and that this was likely the first recorded mammalian extinction due to global warming.   Not surprisingly his claims attracted much media interest. 

Now Professor Williams has rediscovered the white possum and the media is reporting “Extinct possum back from the dead”. 

This morning I tried to phone the Professor to get more information and temperature records.   The phone went to message back, and there was a reassuring message letting me know he wasn’t far away.   I then sent the following detailed email and got the following reply a little while later: “I will be away in the field until 7th April with limited email access.”

I think the questions in my email to Professor Williams are relevant and hopefully he can answer them on his return.

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Make a Night of It – Earth Hour

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THE Carbon Sense Coalition today came out in support of Earth Hour, but said it should be renamed “Blackout Night” and be held outdoors, for the whole night, in mid-winter, on the shortest and coldest day of the year. 

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that spending just one night in the cold and the dark, with no hot coffee or beef on the barbecue, using no light, heat or vehicle energy from coal, gas, petrol or diesel, and without protection from metal or concrete structures, would be good practice for the blackouts and shortages to come if world rationing of carbon products and carbon energy is achieved.

“Winter nights are usually still and cold, so the candles crew can really experience what it will be like to depend on alternative energy when there is no sun and no wind. The back-to-nature brigade can also try living without iron roofs and concrete walls. And the eat-no-meat mob can experience a night without hamburgers and cappuccinos.

“To hold a candles-and-champagne party indoors, on the mildest night of the year, for just one hour, shows that the whole thing is tokenism. Moreover both candles and champagne emit carbon dioxide. Let the true believers try the real thing in one of the extreme seasons so they can appreciate the great benefits we take for granted when using all of our carbon fuels and foods.

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Save the Snake, Graze Some Bush?

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WHILE some armchair environmentalists believe that burning bush is bad for biodiversity, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting otherwise.

Ongoing research at Sydney University by a group lead by Rick Shine suggests Australia’s most endangered snake would benefit from more controlled burns.

Researcher David Pike, at his Sydney University home page, goes as far as to suggest that:

“Following European settlement of Australia, the amount of vegetation (i.e., canopy shading) in many habitats has increased. The most likely causes for this change are the prevention of natural disturbance events, such as wildfires, and the cessation of aboriginal fire-stick farming, which aboriginal peoples used to effectively managed habitat for wildlife and food plants. In more recent times vegetation has encroached upon crucial habitat for the broad-headed snake, which is already restricted in distribution. This has caused a decrease in the amount of suitable overwintering habitat, and potentially has contributed to a range-wide decline.”

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Confirmation Bias at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology

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THROUGH his ongoing study of US weather stations, Anthony Watts has uncovered some remarkable examples of poor placement resulting in a warming bias.  I am increasingly of the opinion that the problem in Australia is not so much placement of weather stations, but rather how the data is manipulated post collection.  It is also difficult to reconcile the increasing interest in, and funding for, climate related research in Australia with the extraordinary deterioration in the actual recording of data.  The important official weather station at Willis Island, off the north east coast of Australia, is a case in point with no recordings made for long periods over recent years.

The following note from Steve Jones explains in some detail his concerns regarding the quality of data collection and processes at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

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The Available Evidence Does Not Support Fossil Fuels as the Source of Increasing Concentrations of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (Part 1)

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BECAUSE the increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has correlated with an increase in the use of fossil fuels, causation has been assumed.

Tom Quirk has tested this assumption including through an analysis of the time delay between northern and southern hemisphere variations in carbon dioxide.  In a new paper in the journal Energy and Environment he writes:

“Over the last 20 years substantial amounts of CO2 derived from fossil fuel have been released into the atmosphere. This has moved from 5.0 gigatonnes of carbon in 1980 to 6.2 gigatonnes  in 1990 to 7.0 gigatonnes in 2000…  Over 95% of this CO2 has been released in the Northern Hemisphere…

“A tracer for CO2 transport from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere was provided by 14C created by nuclear weapons testing in the 1950’s and 1960’s.The analysis of 14C in atmospheric CO2  showed that it took some years for exchanges of CO2 between the hemispheres before the 14C was uniformly distributed…

“If 75% of CO2 from fossil fuel is emitted north of latitude 30 then some time lag might be expected due to the sharp year-to-year variations in the estimated amounts left in the atmosphere. A simple model, following the example of the 14Cdata with a one year mixing time, would suggest a delay of 6 months for CO2 changes in concentration in the Northern Hemisphere to appear in the Southern Hemisphere.

“A correlation plot of …year on year differences of monthly measurements at Mauna Loa against those at the South Pole [shows]… the time difference is positive when the South Pole data leads the Mauna Loa data. Any negative bias (asymmetry in the plot) would indicate a delayed arrival of CO2 in the Southern Hemisphere.

“There does not appear to be any time difference between the hemispheres. This suggests that the annual increases [in atmospheric carbon dioxide] may be coming from a global or equatorial source.”

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