Jennifer Marohasy

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No Anthropogenic Signal in Tropical Cyclone Record: An Inconvenient Truth (Part 5)

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As 2006 draws to a close it is interesting to ponder the big issues and events from the past year.

Along with the drought, bushfires, extinction of the baiji, 2006 will perhaps be remembered as the year of climate change hysteria.

I think the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in which failed US Presidential hopeful Al Gore described carbon dioxide as the enemy, and then constructing a story as simplistic, horrific, technically flawed* and politically naïve as that CIA dossier on those weapons of mass destruction, was a significant contributor to the hysteria.

Indeed, while support for the notion that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is the cause of all climate catastrophe was building, that movie more than anything else, seemed to galvanize support for the theory.

In the movie, Al Gore presented hurricane Katrina as an example of how global warming from the burning of fossil fuels has resulted in an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes. Disturbing images of New Orleans after Katrina were shown with comment that this is “something new for America” and “how in God’s name could this happen here in the US” and the scientists warned us.

In the movie Al Gore was also big on the idea that all reputable scientists agree. That there is an overwhelming consensus on this and other climate change issues.

Yet most cyclone specialists, including Chris Landsea, have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence for or against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record. The cyclone record includes typhoons and hurricanes.

But Al Gore ignored this inconvenient truth, and the popular press have maintained the deception.

Furthermore, there is no general trend of increasing cyclone number or intensity.

As the year comes to an end it is depressing that the popular press, so enamored with the idea of a man-made global warming climate catastrophe, continue to ignore the experts and the data.

Recently the following ‘Consensus Statements’ on tropical cyclones and climate change was developed, discussed and endorsed at the World Meteorological Organization’s International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones**, but I didn’t read or hear about it on ‘my ABC’.

The experts concluded that the recent increase in impacts from tropical cyclones (including hurricanes) has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

Consensus Statements

1. Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.

2. No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change.

3. The recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

4. Tropical cyclone wind-speed monitoring has changed dramatically over the last few decades, leading to difficulties in determining accurate trends.

5. There is an observed multi-decadal variability of tropical cyclones in some regions whose causes, whether natural, anthropogenic or a combination, are currently being debated. This variability makes detecting any long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity difficult.

6. It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall will occur if the climate continues to warm. Model studies and theory project a 3-5% increase in wind-speed per degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures.

7. There is an inconsistency between the small changes in wind-speed projected by theory and modeling versus large changes reported by some observational studies.

8. Although recent climate model simulations project a decrease or no change in global tropical cyclone numbers in a warmer climate, there is low confidence in this projection. In addition, it is unknown how tropical cyclone tracks or areas of impact will change in the future.

9. Large regional variations exist in methods used to monitor tropical cyclones. Also, most regions have no measurements by instrumented aircraft. These significant limitations will continue to make detection of trends difficult.

10. If the projected rise in sea level due to global warming occurs, then the vulnerability to tropical cyclone storm surge flooding would increase.

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* Technical flaws in the movie are documented in ‘A Skeptic’s Guide to An Inconvenient Truth’ by Marlo Lewis at
http://www.cei.org/gencon/030,05478.cfm.
Also I’ve written bits and pieces on ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ with links at my website here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/faq.php?id=15&category=18 .

** The Workshop was held in San Jose, Costa Rica, in November 2006. It was invitation-only bringing together 125 researchers and practitioners from 34 countries in the field of tropical cyclone forecasting.

*** Sections underlined where added at 8.30am on 19th following comment from Luke.

Running on Wine

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Earlier this year I read that the European Commission had given the green light to farmers in France and Italy to once again convert their surplus wine into bioethanol.

The farmers get a subsidy for distillation of the surplus wine. I guess they also got a subsidy for growing it?

Meanwhile there has been some recent discussion at this blog about world grain stocks being dangerously low because of increasing convertion of grain to biofuels. There has also been discussion about the Queensland government building a dam so farmers can grow grapes.

There seems no limit to human ingenuity and folly when it comes to farming?

Ecology is a Branch of Biology: A Note from Haldun

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Hi Jennifer,

In the academic world we speak of the “natural,” the “mathematical,” the “social,” the “engineering,” and the other sciences.

The natural sciences deal mostly with the humanly dicovered laws/rules of nature while the mathematical sciences are associated with “human” made laws/rules and their applications.

Engineering science deals mainly with how knowledge gained from the mathematical and natural sciences can be applied with judgment to devise ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of human kind (ABET 1980). Engineering science courses usually lead to engineering design in which we make use of the laws of nature and avoid their negative consequences.

Historically, the natural sciences branched first to physics, chemistry, biology. Later, biology and natural geography gave birth to ecology. Presently, at the basic level we have the natural sciences branching into physics, chemistry, biology and ecology with all their known sub-branches.

Ecology, very briefly, is the natural science that treats the relationships of the living (biota) among themselves and among the non-biotic environment.

Thanks to pioneers like Eugene Odum, Edward Kormondy, and Fikret Berkes we can use the “system” approach to study and quantify ecosystems, especially in terms of energy requirements.

Thanks to discoveries in genetics and the evolutionary processes alonside with the latest findings in ecology, we can predict natural human behavioral patterns as well as future requirements.

We can also predict environmental damage although it is a relatively slow process.

In contemporary ecology humans are classified as within the top “omnivore” subclass of the consumer class of biota (producer>consumer>decomposer). Human ecology should be the subject belonging to the natural sciences under the division of ecology.

The fact that human habitats are mainly outside the natural forest areas does not mean that the laws of the jungles do not apply within the cities.

Finally, a clear distinction should be made between ecology and enviromental sciences. The former, as discussed above, is a natural science while the latter is very close to an engineering science.

Haldun.

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This is an edited version of a comment posted earlier today by Haldun on an old blog post entitled ‘Ecology is Not a Branch of Biology’. I definately have a preference for the natural sciences.

The Burnett River Tortoise: A Note from Russell

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Hi Jennifer,

Any Australians looking for an example of an endangered or vulnerable freshwater species to focus a campaign on might look no further than the Burnett River tortoise.

This species is under threat due to changes in flow regimes on the Burnett, as it lives primarily in riffle habitats and these are disappearing as a consequence of damming the river.

The species was the subject of some controversy during the Paradise Dam proposal and construction. The dam proponents escaped the endangered species label for this tortoise by pointing out it also occurs in the Fitzroy and the Mary and so how could it be endangered if the Dam was built on the Burnett? Of course there was little discussion of the impact of existing and proposed modifications of habitat for this species on those two other river systems. But as one of the leading engineers for the consulting company that prepared the Enironmental Impact Assessment (and the director of their environmental group) said to me at the time:

…what is the fate of a tortoise, compared to the need to provide table grapes to Brisbane?

What indeed, I had to ask myself? After all, it is nothing more than a rather ugly looking reptile.

What possible moral or ethical dilemma could there be in making a decision not to proceed with a development simply because it might extinguish a species that had moved itself foolishly up an adaptive peak?

Clearly those who eventually made the decision to proceed were motivated by a much loftier sense of duty; the need to provide grapes to Brisbane.

I might also point out they were so motivated by that lofty moral position they had no qualms about changing what I had written in the Environmental Impact Assessment to tone down the quite legitimate concerns about the future of that species.

My point in raising this example, is that some here seem to imply that the fate of the Baiji might have been different if it had been Australians that were making the local decisions.

My personal experience suggests there would be no difference.

Russell.

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This is a slightly edited version of a comment first posted by Russell at the very long thread that began with a blog post entitled ‘The Loss of the Baiji’.

The Loss of the Baiji

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It seems the most endangered mammal on earth, a species of freshwater dolphin from the Yangtze River in China, is now extinct. That’s the conclusion from a group of specialists who recently spent six weeks searching for the dolphin, also known as the baiji, along the Yangtze.

The extinction of the baiji has taken place at a time of unprecedented interest and concern for their large relative, the minke whale. We have know for some time that there are probably over a million minke whales, but perhaps no more than a dozen baiji. Yet so much money has been spent campaigning to “save the minke whale”. Where are our priorities when it comes to conservation? I wrote on this issue in the last IPA Review in a piece entitled, “The Loss of the Baiji’.

baiji whistle.jpg

This picture is from www.baiji.org.

Click here and you can listen to a recording of the baiji’s whistle.

So beautiful.

The Great Grain Drain: A Note from Aaron Edmonds

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Hi Jennifer,

Globally grain stocks have shrunk to levels not seen since the early 1970s. Now to most this may seem like a seemingly unimportant fact. But this reality needs to be put into perspective.

In 1970 when the world was feeding itself out of the same sized grain inventories there were 3.7 billion people. Today there are over 6.5 billion people meaning the world is carrying near an extra 3 billion hungry mouths to 1970. We also now have a significant portion of the global crop being turned into biofuels – cereals and sugars for ethanol and oilseeds and tallows for biodiesel.

Once these biofuel plants are built they generally do not stop consuming feedstock. Shareholders do not make money from plants sitting idle. Other end users that have emerged are combustible stoves and water heaters in grain producing areas where low prices have encouraged feedstock substitution away from fossil fuels.

There are over 2 million corn stoves in North America alone that consume close to 25kg each per day in the cooler months – a total loss of 50,000 tonnes a day. What this serves to highlight is that grain prices have been too slow to appreciate to discourage waste in non food sectors. Once end using infrastructure is in place and consuming it generally will take significant grain price inflation to stop this consumption. Grain values in effect need to reach and in fact surplus energy parity values to prevent loss to biofuel end uses.

On the other end of the grain chain are the producers who are facing severe limitations in their ability to actually increase let alone maintain production. Depleting water aquifers, drought affected irrigation sources, competition for water and reduced rainfall are issues that are real and impacting on production output today.

And with an anticipated ‘grain boom’ there are also some such as myself who are predicting capacity constraints. For example, an inability for the fertilizer supply chain to be able to cope with demand from an agricultural sector keen to capitalise on rising prices. Potash fertilizer may be especially short moving forward. Hyperinflation in such inputs in itself is damaging to the output potential of third world cropping systems. Competition for land resources by staple food crops will be fierce and ‘illogical’ crop choices of the past (eg fruit crops) will be swept aside for fields of wheat, rice, corn and soybeans.

Output driven technologies such as transgenics will need to be embraced worldwide and embraced with fervour. Most would argue it is better to be fed than dead and anyone disagreeing with this is likely unwilling to be the first to go without as shortages unfold.

Environmentalism has failed for there is not one so called green group with a truly sustainable model of food production to promote today.

2007 will be a critical year for the world’s staple food supply. Because a willingness to try and produce our way out of an approaching deficiency in grain supplies may be overriden by constraints out of everyones hands – weather and water. There are already early signs that China’s 06-07 winter wheat areas are showing the effects of drought and areas within the Midwestern wheatbelt of the US have inadequate soil moisture levels. Here in Australia our summer crop plantings are well down from previous years. This developing crisis should concern everyone who eats food.

Regards,
Aaron Edmonds
2002 Nuffield Scholar
President Australian Sandalwood Network
www.australianuts.com