Climate & Climate Change

Quenching forest fires leads to more carbon in the air, says new research carried out in Californian forests. The discovery suggests that forests spared from fire may release more of the greenhouse gas into the air than they absorb.

Decades of suppressing natural fires has increased the number of surviving trees in California’s forests. But this growth has been at the expense of larger trees, which are less resilient to drought and other stresses than smaller, younger trees, resulting in a decline in the total amount of carbon stored in these forests.

Nature News.com: Forest-fire management ‘raises carbon emissions’

Governments should work together to build the supercomputers needed for future predictions that can capture the detail required to inform policy.

Few scientific creations have had greater impact on public opinion and policy than computer models of Earth’s climate. These models, which unanimously show a rising tide of red as temperatures climb worldwide, have been key over the past decade in forging the scientific and political consensus that global warming is a grave danger.

Now that that consensus is all but universal, climate modellers are looking to take the next step, and to convert their creations from harbingers of doom to tools of practical policy. That means making their simulations good enough to guide hard decisions, from targets for carbon dioxide emissions on a global scale to the adaptations required to meet changing rainfall and extreme weather events on regional and local scales.

Today’s modelling efforts, though, are not up to that job. They all agree on the general direction in which the climate will move as greenhouse gases build up, but they do not reliably capture all the nuances of today’s climate, let alone tomorrow’s. Moreover, each model differs from reality in different ways.

Editorial: The next big climate challenge

Methane outbursts from seafloor deposits are unlikely to have been the sole cause of an extreme episode of global warming around the time of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum some 55 million years ago.

Research Highlights: Palaeoclimate: Methane didn’t act alone

Data laboriously extracted from an Antarctic ice core provide an unprecedented view of temperature, and levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane, over the past 800,000 years of Earth’s history.

The data further reinforce the tight link between greenhouse gases and climate, a link maintained by as-yet only partially understood feedbacks in the Earth system. Variations in methane levels are most probably caused by variations in the influence of temperature and rainfall on wetlands in the tropics and boreal (high-northern-latitude) regions. Carbon dioxide variability is almost universally viewed as an oceanic phenomenon, a consequence of the large pools of carbon sequestered there. Changes in ocean circulation, biological productivity, carbon dioxide solubility and other aspects of ocean chemistry have been implicated, but the exact mix of mechanisms is not clear.

News and Views: Palaeoclimate: Windows on the greenhouse

The climate is changing, and so are aspects of the world’s physical and biological systems. It is no easy matter to link cause and effect — the latest attack on the problem brings the power of meta-analysis to bear. It uses a larger database than the recent IPCC report, and it takes account of land-use change and other complications. The authors conclude that anthropogenic climate change is affecting physical and biological systems globally. But as Francis Zwiers and Gabriele Hegerl point out in News & Views, this proof based on the principle of joint attribution stops short of the statistical certainty that would be provided by ‘end-to-end’ models linking human activity directly to the observed changes, rather than via effects on the climate system.

News and Views: Climate change: Attributing cause and effect

Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.

Article: Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change

Changes in past atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations can be determined by measuring the composition of air trapped in ice cores from Antarctica. So far, the Antarctic Vostok and EPICA Dome C ice cores have provided a composite record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 650,000 years1, 2, 3, 4. Here we present results of the lowest 200 m of the Dome C ice core, extending the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by two complete glacial cycles to 800,000 yr before present. From previously published data1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and the present work, we find that atmospheric carbon dioxide is strongly correlated with Antarctic temperature throughout eight glacial cycles but with significantly lower concentrations between 650,000 and 750,000 yr before present. Carbon dioxide levels are below 180 parts per million by volume (p.p.m.v.) for a period of 3,000 yr during Marine Isotope Stage 16, possibly reflecting more pronounced oceanic carbon storage. We report the lowest carbon dioxide concentration measured in an ice core, which extends the pre-industrial range of carbon dioxide concentrations during the late Quaternary by about 10 p.p.m.v. to 172–300 p.p.m.v.

Letter: High-resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650,000–800,000 years before present

Atmospheric methane is an important greenhouse gas and a sensitive indicator of climate change and millennial-scale temperature variability1. Its concentrations over the past 650,000 years have varied between 350 and 800 parts per 109 by volume (p.p.b.v.) during glacial and interglacial periods, respectively2. In comparison, present-day methane levels of 1,770 p.p.b.v. have been reported3. Insights into the external forcing factors and internal feedbacks controlling atmospheric methane are essential for predicting the methane budget in a warmer world3. Here we present a detailed atmospheric methane record from the EPICA Dome C ice core that extends the history of this greenhouse gas to 800,000 yr before present. The average time resolution of the new data is 380 yr and permits the identification of orbital and millennial-scale features. Spectral analyses indicate that the long-term variability in atmospheric methane levels is dominated by 100,000 yr glacial–interglacial cycles up to 400,000 yr ago with an increasing contribution of the precessional component during the four more recent climatic cycles. We suggest that changes in the strength of tropical methane sources and sinks (wetlands, atmospheric oxidation), possibly influenced by changes in monsoon systems and the position of the intertropical convergence zone, controlled the atmospheric methane budget, with an additional source input during major terminations as the retreat of the northern ice sheet allowed higher methane emissions from extending periglacial wetlands. Millennial-scale changes in methane levels identified in our record as being associated with Antarctic isotope maxima events1, 4 are indicative of ubiquitous millennial-scale temperature variability during the past eight glacial cycles.

Letter: Orbital and millennial-scale features of atmospheric CH4 over the past 800,000 years

In a NASA media release entitled ‘Electric Hurricanes’ it was suggested that because Emily, Rita and Katrina were all exceptionally powerful hurricanes, their sheer violence somehow explains their lightning. But in the same media release, Richard Blakeslee, from the Global Hydrology and Climate Centre, says that this explanation is too simple.

“Other storms have been equally intense and did not produce much lightning,” he says. “There must be something else at work.”

That “something else at work” is the electric Birkeland currents that power the hurricanes, operating in dark current plasma mode, so little or no lightning is observed.

Birkeland currents are really filaments of electric current that from magnetic attraction are free to rotate around each other, but at the same time coming closer together generates a short range repulsive force that insulates them from each other, thereby maintaining their identity and forming a twisting rope that as the filaments get closer, just like a spinning ice skater bringing in her arms, start to spin even faster. Paired Birkelands are really just electric whirlwinds or a plasma vortex.

The movement of hurricanes over the earth’s surface seems much like that observed for sunspots.

Kristian Birkeland showed the gross features of sunspots in his Terrella experiments where electric discharges, from a donut of plasma around the magnetised sphere, move from mid to low latitudes on the sphere as the electric current increased.

The sun’s plasma torus in UV from the SOHO Mission.

The simplest model for the 22 year magnetic sunspot cycle involves modulation of the electrical power input from the galaxy to the solar circuitry which seems to behave like a secondary winding on a transformer responding to varying DC currents to produce a magnetic field which switches polarity.

The earth is linked to the sun by enormous magnetic flux ropes (or Birkeland currents), and from the behaviour of the auroras and sunspot activity it is entirely likely that the earth’s weather might also be an electrical phenomenon linked to the magnetosphere.

Birkeland rope

Louis Hissink
Perth

We Live in an Electric Universe, Part 1
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/003038.html

We Live in an Electric Universe, Part 2
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/003047.html

A letter that was recently published in the UK Daily Mail about the work of Raymond H Wheeler prompted me to find out more:

Professor Raymond H. Wheeler (University of Kansas) compiled 20 centuries of historical records, and concluded from his studies that there exists a most important 100-year-cycle of climatic changes that influences human affairs in a profound manner.

The cycle occurs in four distinct phases, which are descriptive of worldwide conditions rather than specific areas. The four phases are disturbed by secondary leads and delays — as much as 10 years — in isolated and widely separated areas. Prof Wheeler stated:

“The climatic curve is intended to represent — as far as one curve can — the weather trend in the world as a whole at any one time. The curve has no absolute significance. The meaning of the curve at any one time is relative to the pattern of the 100-year old cycle as a whole.”

The 100-year weather cycle and its phases are not of precisely equal duration. The cycle can contract to 70 years or expand to 120. The cycle is divided into a warm and a cold phase, each of which has a wet and dry period. Because people are affected by weather, the cycles of weather produce similar patterns of behaviour and events in history during the same phases of the century-long weather cycle. The phases are: (1) Cold-Dry, (2) Warm-Wet, (3) Warm-Dry, and (4) Cold-Wet. We are now in a cold-dry phase, which will prevail until about 2000 A.D.
Dr. Wheeler extended his research to reveal a continuous, universal cultural pattern of “mechanism” alternating with “humanism” that occurs throughout history synchronously with the 100-year weather cycle……………….

I find this phrase uncannily representative of the modern warm period:

“Second, the decline, onset of decadence, the growing excesses of centralized government, the emergence of dictators, tyranny, fanaticism, communism, and socialism, as the warm epoch continued, and as temperatures and dryness increased.”

Most of the material that we have about Wheeler is found in the book Climate: The Key To Understanding Business Cycles by Raymond Wheeler, (Revised & Edited by Michael Zahorchak). This volume summarizes Raymond H. Wheeler’s extensive research with long climatic cycles and their relationship to the business cycle. In the 1930’s Wheeler began a lifetime study that analysed world climate and cultural activities back to the dawn of recorded civilization.

Wheeler was also the creator of a huge volume known as “The Big Book” which was housed at the Foundation for the Study of Cycles until the late 1990s.

Cycles Research Institute: Raymond H Wheeler

Letter published in the UK Daily Mail:

As a result of the recent budget, the Rudd government will be spending $2.3 billion over five years to “tackle climate change by reducing emissions, adapting to change and helping Australia play a leadership role.”

An Australian climate realist recently remarked, “This represents a huge pitch by Kevin Rudd for the youth and environmental vote, and helps explain why our new government has determinedly resisted listening to any alternative, wiser voices on the issue of global warming.

Penny Wong’s new ministry (of Climate) is reputed to already have 124 staff, and that’s on top of an already established federal dept. of the environment, a national greenhouse office that gets a few hundred million dollars a year, eight states and territories with both DOEs and GOs, and several major university-CSIRO research centres. The cost of maintaining such an army of bureaucrats and (by Australian standards) regiment of scientists must be in the region of $2 billion, to which treasurer Swan is now adding another couple of billion.

The resulting Australian figure of $4 billion annually is similar to what USA is estimated to spend on greenhouse R&D each year (though the US figure probably doesn’t include all their climate bureaucracy). On a per capita basis, as for sport, Australia now appears to be ‘punching above our weight’.”

I think it’s worth posting the graphic below again:

Borrowing the phrase often attributed to UK Aussie Rolf Harris, ” Can you tell what it is yet!?”

The Amazon rainforest, so crucial to the Earth’s climate system, is coming under threat from cleaner air say prominent UK and Brazilian climate scientists in the journal Nature.

Science Daily: Amazon Under Threat From Cleaner Air

Report: CO2 from deforestation ‘far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories’

Excerpt: The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth’s equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories. The rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total. “Tropical forests are the elephant in the living room of climate change,” said Andrew Mitchell, the head of the GCP.Scientists say one days’ deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing those catastrophic emissions can be achieved most quickly and most cheaply by halting the destruction in Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and elsewhere.No new technology is needed, says the GCP, just the political will and a system of enforcement and incentives that makes the trees worth more to governments and individuals standing than felled. “The focus on technological fixes for the emissions of rich nations while giving no incentive to poorer nations to stop burning the standing forest means we are putting the cart before the horse,” said Mr Mitchell.

The Independent: Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming

KEVIN Rudd’s climate change guru Ross Garnaut has used his newly attained expertise in the field to argue heritage traditions, such as a slate roof, should not apply to a sleek, modern house he wants to build in inner suburban Melbourne.

The Australian: Garnaut heavies council over roof

WATER Commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy says installing a pool at her home is sending “the right message” to Queenslanders coping with tough water restrictions.

couriermail.com.au: Water chief defends new pool

CLIMATE change could lead to “killer cornflakes” with the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told.

news.com.au: Cornflakes in cereal killer warning

A $34 million solar instrument package to be built by the University of Colorado at Boulder, considered a crucial tool to help monitor global climate change, has been restored to a U.S. government satellite mission slated for launch in 2013.

The data from these instruments will help scientists differentiate between natural and human-caused climate change, said Pilewskie.

CU Team To Build $34 Million Instrument Package For U.S. Environmental Satellite

Study: With locked crust, Earth could become another Venus

HOUSTON, May 12, 2008 — A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a planet’s crust to become locked in place.

EurekAlert: Hot climate could shut down plate tectonics

“The boom of thunder and crackle of lightning generally mean one thing: a storm is coming. Curiously, though, the biggest storms of all, hurricanes, are notoriously lacking in lightning. Hurricanes blow, they rain, they flood, but seldom do they crackle,” at least that was how NASA s Patrick Barry and Tony Phillips began an article entitled ‘Electric Hurricanes’ early in 2006. The article then makes reference to three of the most powerful hurricanes of 2005 –Rita, Katrina, and Emily– with comment that they did have lightning, in fact “lots of it”.

A mystery surrounding hurricanes is their actual formation, for while it is generally accepted that a warmer than usual ocean is a pre-requisite, the formation of tropical cyclones is the topic of extensive ongoing research and is still not fully understood.

One of the reasons why cyclone formation remains mysterious could be because we are excluding one of the largest forces in nature from our intellectual armoury – electricity. The general perception is that atmospheric turbulence creates the charge separation that produces lightning and so electrical forces are excluded from any models of weather.

Much the same reasoning is applied to space where charge separation is also not deemed possible. But this attitude should have changed 100 years ago when Kristian Birkeland pointed out that the polar auroras were produced by electrical currents from the Sun, and proceeded to demonstrate that with his famous “Terrella” experiments.

As Hannes Alfven observed in 1948 “Nearly everything we know about the celestial universe has come from applying principles we have learnt in terrestrial physics…Yet there is one great branch of physics that up to now has told us little or nothing about astronomy. That branch is electricity. It is rather astonishing that this phenomenon, which has been so exhaustively studied on earth, has been of so little help in the celestial sphere”.

Alven’s student Anthony Peratt continued research into plasma universe theory and developed Particle in Cell simulation using the Maxwell-Lorentz equations to model plasma behaviour. One type of simulation involved a pair of Birkeland currents in parallel and looking top row left to right, then next row left to right, was able to produce a spiral galaxy formation, (see Figure 1). The accuracy of PIC simulation is shown in its astonishing ability to mimic known galaxy shapes (Figure 2) without using gravity.

Put simply, the two parallel Birkeland currents approach and start twisting around each other, imparting a spinning motion. This is the basic design of the Maxwell homopolar motor. Here it is the electric current that is generating the circular motion and suggests that we should be looking for signs of electrical activity in cyclones.

Louis Hissink
Perth