Jennifer Marohasy

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Climate & Climate Change

Carbon Off-setting an Expedition to the Antarctic

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CHRIS Turney is professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales. He recently set off on a 233-foot-long Russian-flagged ship with 70 or so colleagues to check-out the climate by following in the footsteps of famous explorer Douglas Mawson’s 1912 expedition to the Antarctic.

I’m assuming that the ship is running on diesel. So it would be incurring a “carbon debit”. Did Professor Turney make provisions to off-set this debit before he set off?

According to David Suzuki the first thing to consider before buying carbon offsets is:

“Know your carbon footprint and understand what your largest sources of emissions are. Ensure that you include all of your major emission sources, such as electricity consumption, fuel use, and travel.”

Since setting off, the ship has got stuck in ice. Three ice breaker ships have set-off to rescue it.

Should the fuel consumption of the three ice breakers also be included in Professor Turney’s carbon offset calculations?

None of this information about carbon offsets is being communicated by Professor Turney who is sending out lots of tweets and some blog posts. I’m also wondering what the Professor has discovered about climate change and the change in ice cover at the Antarctic since 1912 when Douglas Mawson ventured down there.

How Long Before AGW is recognised as a Spectacularly Wrong Scientific Theories by the Academies?

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“ONE of the best things about science is that the discipline is self-correcting.” So wrote Eric Berger in a blog post in which he lists, what he considers, the top 10 most spectacularly wrong once widely held scientific theories.clouds

His list included:
The stress theory of ulcers;
Immovable continents;
Phlogiston; and
Miasmatic theory of disease.

I’m wondering how long on average these theories existed before they were falsified and how many sceptical scientists were censured before their eventual overthrow?

Which brings me to the subject of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). While I’m convinced that one day it will be recognised as spectacularly wrong, at this point in history, each year its grip on popular opinion and on the scientific community seems to only strengthen.

I was disappointed to recently reread an article written in 2011 about the Murray River entitled ‘Water under the Bridge’. While its author, Kate Jennings, was sympathetic to my work, until I reread the piece I had forgotten her disparaging comments about my AGW scepticism. She wrote: “Jennifer Marohasy is a prominent climate-change sceptic, so her work on the barrages is dismissed out of hand.”

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Update 31st December 2013. Comment from David Boyd.

Hi Jen,

I was disappointed in your interpretation of Kate’s references to you in her 2011 article as “disparaging”. I don’t think they were. She was stating a problem which we “enlightened sceptics” suffered from with our then minority position on the climate change nonsense.

Remember the full quote was-
“Jennifer Marohasy is a prominent climate-change sceptic, so her work on the barrages is dismissed out of hand. (We could also dismiss anything from the Wentworth Group because it is funded by the World Wildlife Fund, which could bias findings.)”

I think Kate’s comment was “disparaging” of the “commentariat”. How absurd to attempt to undermine somebodies views on one issue, because you disagree with their views on another.

David Boyd

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Thanks David. Words, and how they are interpreted and how for the one person that interpretation can change.

For those who wish to form their own opinion, Kate’s essay can be read here… http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2011/october/1317956752/kate-jennings/water-under-bridge. It is also interesting to ponder the second paragraph…

“I insulted the Greens on purpose to get your attention. Green-ish myself. Climate change? Happening. Melting poles, warming oceans. People, do something! But if I’d started by discussing tillage fractures or SER statistics, you would’ve drifted, flipped the page. I also wanted to make a point about insults. If you begin an op-ed piece, as Tim Flannery did in the Age, with “… white Australia’s relationship with the bush has been a kind of rape and pillage”, your subsequent points about biochar as a source of energy or innovations in farming are completely lost on the audience you most want to reach…” The paragraph ends with reference to metaphors having consequences.

Kate is clear that she does believe in climate change including melting poles and warming oceans. Of course.

If an author needs to begin a piece in The Monthly on the Murray River with reference to climate change and explicitly state that she believes in it, what does this tell us about herself and/or her audience? My recent reference to Carl Jung’s writings are perhaps relevant here https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/2013/11/against-collective-integration-carl-jung/ .

AGW Falsified: NOAA Long Wave Radiation Data Incompatible with the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming

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ANTHROPOGENIC Global Warming (AGW) theory claims the earth is warming because rising CO2 is like a blanket, reducing Earth’s energy loss to space. However, data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that at least for the last 30 years, Earth’s energy loss to space has been rising. The last 30 years of NOAA data is not compatible with the theory of AGW. It would appear that either 30 years of NOAA data is wrong or the theory of AGW is flawed. This is Michael Hammer’s conclusion following analysis of the official outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) data.

Read the complete article here: ‘The NOAA Outgoing Long Wave Radiation Data Appears to be Incompatible with The Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming’ by Michael Hammer. Michael Hammer Chart

The research uncovers some interesting trends and most importantly highlights that:

1. Earth can only warm if the rate of energy input exceeds the rate of energy loss;

2. Thus earth would warm if energy absorbed from the sun increased or energy loss to space (outgoing longwave radiation or OLR for short) decreased – or of course both;

3. The theory of AGW claims that Earth is warming because rising CO2 is reducing the energy loss to space i.e. is causing OLR to decrease;

4. Thirty years of experimental data published by NOAA (one of the prime AGW reference sites) shows OLR has been rising progressively between 1980 and 2010 and is now 2.5 watt/sqM higher than in 1980; and

5. The period between 1980 and 2010 is when almost all the CO2 induced warming is supposed to have taken place.

“If the corner stone of AGW theory says earth is warming because outgoing long wave radiation is decreasing yet 30 years of experimental data shows OLR is rising (remember 30 years is the time AGW proponents claim is the interval necessary to separate climate from weather) it would seem the theory of AGW is as a minimum extremely seriously compromised.”

Read the complete article here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AGW_Falsified_Michael_Hammer.pdf

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Michael Hammer has a B Eng Sci and M Eng Sci from Melbourne university. His original training was as an electrical engineer but for the last 35 years he has been employed to carry out research across a wide range of technologies for a major multinational spectroscopy company. Over that time he has taken around 20 patents and his work has resulted in a significant number of commercially successful products.

To read older blog posts from Michael Hammer click here and scroll down: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/author/michael-hammer/

At Last a Politician Mentions Climate Fraud: Queensland Senator Ian MacDonald

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I’VE been unimpressed with new Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the nature of the Coalition’s election victory. During the recent election then Shadow Minister, now Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, repeatedly stated that “We agree… on the science of climate change, we agree on the targets to reduce emissions and we agree on using markets as the best mechanism.”

There has been no one prepared to publically put the alternative perspective on climate change, to speak up and explain that of course the climate has always changed, but there is no evidence to suggest we currently have a climate catastrophe or that a carbon tax will have any effect on the climate. Until yesterday. While I wouldn’t consider Ian MacDonald’s speech to the Australian Senate particularly well written, it is inspiring in so much as at last we have an Australian politician speaking plainly in parliament about the nonsense that is climate change and the carbon tax… Ian Macdonald

[Read more…] about At Last a Politician Mentions Climate Fraud: Queensland Senator Ian MacDonald

Climate Change Rallies Held Around Australia

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THE Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s news online is running with the headline ‘Climate change rallies held around Australia, with calls for Coalition to keep carbon tax’. So many could-be inspiring photographs and could-be inspiring captions follow the headline that I could have been on Facebook. Climate Change Rally

Indeed the ABC “news item” would tick most of the boxes for pure propaganda.

I’m filing some quotes from the “news item” here for posterity:

“There is no sceptic at the end of a fire hose.”

“Emergency workers played a significant role in warning about the dangers of unchecked global warming.”

“The Climate Council’s Tim Flannery told 30,000 people in Melboure that Australian must make their voices heard.”

“Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt evoked the memory of the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires, while firefighters spoke of their fears of increasingly hotter days.”

“Mr McNulty says scientists were clear that global warming would make extreme weather events more frequent and severe.”

Meanwhile I stayed at home reading Friedrich Nietzche, and note that he wrote:
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

Super Typhoon Haiyan Strongest in Recorded History?

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THE US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, using satellite analysis to estimate wind speeds, has claimed that Typhoon Haiyan, that hit the east coast of Samar in the Phillipines on November 8, 2013 is one of the strongest storms in recorded history.

According to the New York Times [1]:

Before the typhoon made landfall, some international forecasters were estimating wind speeds at 195 m.p.h., which would have meant the storm would hit with winds among the strongest recorded. But local forecasters later disputed those estimates. “Some of the reports of wind speeds were exaggerated,” Mr. Paciente said.

The Philippine weather agency measured winds on the eastern edge of the country at about 150 m.p.h., he said, with some tracking stations recording speeds as low as 100 m.p.h.

The United States Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center used satellite analysis to estimate sustained winds at 195 m.p.h., with gusts up to 235 m.p.h., but that measured the center of the storm when it was over the ocean.

“As far as satellite imagery was concerned, it indicated that this was one of the strongest storms on record,” said Roger Edson, the science and operations officer at the United States National Weather Service in Guam.

He said 195 m.p.h. winds would put the storm “off the charts,” but he acknowledged that satellite estimates require further study on the ground to determine if they were accurate.

I can’t find information on the sea level pressure recorded for Typhoon Haiyan.

Guiuan, Samar

Typhoon Tip had been considered the largest and most intense tropical storm ever recorded with a worldwide record-low sea level pressure of 870 mbar and peak winds of 190 mph (305 km/h) on October 12, 1979. It was also the largest storm ever recorded with a wind diameter of 2,220 km (1,380 miles) [2]. US Air Force aircraft flew 60 weather reconnaissance missions into this typhoon.

The deadliest storm in recorded history is known as Great Boha hitting Bangladesh on November 12, 1970. This cyclone sustained a record high 40-foot storm surge and killed 300,000 to 500,000 people [3].

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1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/powerful-typhoon-causes-mass-disruption-in-philippines.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip
3. http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=204

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