Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Climate & Climate Change

Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Asks SPPI

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THE Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) continues raising serious concerns for policy makers and the public as to whether the “adjustments” that government-funded employees continue making to raw surface and ocean temperature data sets can be trusted.   In a new collaborative paper, Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?, Dr. Dave Evans has gathered substantial evidence that corruption has become endemic within government-sponsored climate units.  Dr. Evans finds that, “The Western Climate Establishment has allowed egregious mistakes, major errors and obvious biases to accumulate — each factor on its own might be hard to pin down, but the pattern is undeniable.” Evans asks, “How many excuses does it take?”

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Unqualified reporting of “expected” climate change trends

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ON Friday 29 October 2010, The Cairns Post reported on the recently released Climate Change Report with respect to impacts on the Far North Queensland region. One of the statements contained in the article was:

 “The number of days over 35C in Cairns is expected to triple and the Gulf and Cape can expect longer drier spells interrupted by more intense rainfall.”

If we just focus on the number of days over 35C statement, then how is this qualified? The words “expected to triple” are with respect to what baseline? How is this expectation derived, from historical data or models? The historical data can easily be checked by downloading the records for Cairns from the BOM website (http://www.bom.gov.au).

The results are shown in Figure 1, Temperatures for Cairns above 35°C from 1943 to present.

The long term average number of days above 35°C is 3 per year. There have been four years in the past (1956, 1971, 1988 and 1992) when the number of days has trebled or more above the long term yearly average. It can therefore be expected that this may occur again in the future as part of the natural variation; in fact looking at the frequency of these events, Cairns is overdue for another one of these above average years. The interesting question is should this not occur for say the next 10 years, does this refute the expectation being reported in this newspaper article? Does this graph in fact support the concept that there has been a lack of evidence for warming in the Cairns region since 1996 and is the natural climate cycle in this region still operating within an historical range? Is there justification for an alternative view that the climate in Cairns may be moving into a cooling phase? As usual only time will tell.

Returning to the use of the unqualified word such as “expected”, what does this mean? There is no probability assigned to this descriptor. Yet based on the historical data a probability can be assigned to the hypothesis of a trebling of the number of days with temperatures above 35°C from the long term average for Cairns. According to the records this value is 0.06 (or a 6% chance). Ironically there is twice as much chance (14.7%) that there will be no days above 35°C.

The warmest period for Cairns shown in Figure 1 is from 1988 to 1995, and currently 2010 has reached the long term average of 3 days above 35°C. With the current La Nina pattern in effect it will be interesting to see what maximum temperatures are recorded for November and December of 2010. At this stage it is clear that the 2000’s have not shown any unprecedented warming in the Cairns region based on this maximum temperature parameter. 

Dr B Basil Beamish
Senior Lecturer in Mining Engineering, School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane Qld 4072

Eric Abetz Tackles Robyn Williams on Treatment of Bob Carter

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THE Australian Broadcasting  Corporation (ABC) is slashing the budget for its network of foreign correspondence* when more than ever Australia needs to be able to accurately and continually assess its place in a rapidly changing global power dynamic.

At the same time some local ABC journalists, like Robyn Williams from the Science Show, are peddling alarmist propaganda while denigrating our best independent thinkers.* 

At Senate Estimates in Canberra* last week, Senator Eric Abetz queried Managing Director, Mark Scott, on the treatment of  Bob Carter by Mr Williams  and in particular asked why the week Professor Carter’s new book was launched, instead of discussing the book, The Counter Consensus, the Science Show paraded a British journalist masquerading as a climate expert to attack a paper published by Professor Carter two years earlier. 

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The Need for a New Theory of Climate (Part 2)

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ACCORDING to the philosopher Thomas Kuhn, a scientific theory, for example, Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is likely to be based on a particular set of experimental and theoretical techniques for matching it with what is observed in the physical world. 

The hard core of AGW theory is embodied in the law and mathematical expression described by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius over one hundred years ago.  In its original form, Arrhenius’ law states that if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.   Dr Arrhenius calculated values for the absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric carbon dioxide and speculate that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would cause a global temperature rise of 5 – 6 °C.  

It wasn’t until 1988 that AGW captured significant political attention.  That was when climatologist James Hansen, in his testimony to US congressional committees, claimed a 4.2°C global temperature increase would result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. 

Since then estimates have been continuously adjusted down.  

In the 1995 IPCC report, for example, a doubling of carbon dioxide was predicted to cause a 3.8 °C increase and then in 2001 a 3.5°C increase and in 2007 a 3.26°C increase.  

In 2008, twenty years after his initial influential testimony, Professor Hansen issued a statement to the effect that his central estimate of lambda was now 0.75, requiring a further reduction of the official climate sensitivity estimate by one quarter, to 2.5°C degrees for a doubling of carbon dioxide. 

Even leading skeptical scientists Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer agree to a reduced sensitivity for a doubling of carbon dioxide. 

Do all these adjustments indicate a problem with the hard core of AGW theory?
 
The late mathematician and philosopher Imre Lakatos claims that scientists who subscribe to a particular scientific theory, also known as a paradigm, will tend to work to ensure its hard core is unfalsifiable. 

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This post builds on, and synthesizes, many of the comments provided by readers at:  The Need for a new Theory of Climate (Part 1). https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2010/10/the-need-for-a-new-theory-of-climate-part-1/?cp=all

Volcanic Eruptions and Global Temperature

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VOLCANIC eruptions have long been known to influence global climate, besides their obvious local effects. They emit large clouds of aerosols and sulphur-containing gases into the lower and upper atmospheres, affecting albedo, cloud formation and causing optical phenomena. They also cause widespread oceanic disturbance (tsunamis) which can destroy settlements large distances from the eruption.  Although there is now conclusive evidence from the satellite record of temperature effects from volcanic eruptions and from ENSO, there is, so far, no evidence of global warming from an increase in greenhouse gases.

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From Rod Kerkhoven in South Australia

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I saw this one man from Adelaide University at Milang and I asked him about these barrages and he said that if they let the sea in the caravan park would have been flooded. He mentioned something about the Surveyor General’s Office telling the Premier that hundreds of acres of land would be inundated if the sea were allowed back in.   I suppose it has risen since they put the dam things in which was in 1948… They are all slashing their paddocks early this year. In fact it gets earlier and earlier and I have been here for 20 years…  One more thing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu0kCa61VSo