The [Australian] media is about to put the Rudd Government on trial when its targets are released next week. But the media should also be put on trial in any contest about honesty and integrity. Read more here.
Climate & Climate Change
UN Suspends Company that Validates Offsets
The United Nations (UN) suspended the work of the main company that validates carbon-offset projects in developing countries, sending shockwaves through the emissions-trading business. Read more here.
Dip in Global Sea Level Won’t Save Tuvalu
SEA level is measured in two ways: from tidal gauges and by satellite altimeter. According to the University of Colorado, Bolder, since August 1992 the satellite altimeters have been measuring sea level on a global basis with unprecedented accuracy and since 2005 the steady upward trend has stumbled.
The recent dip could not qualify as a trend, but it is interesting – particularly given that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise.
Of course even a drop in the global sea level may not save Tuvalu because the great majority of oceanic islands, including Tuvalu, were formed by volcanic activity. While the volcanoes are active, the islands rise relative to the global averaged sea-level. When volcanic activity stops, the islands will cool and eventually start to sink. So there are islands rising and sinking all the time – and Tuvalu should be sinking.
[Hat tip to Jack Moevich for the link to the latest data on global sea levels.]
Update: Climate Conference New York 2009
“Confirmed speakers for Heartland’s climate-change conference makes clear, it is Gore whose eyes are shut to reality. Among the “climate deniers” lined up to speak are Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT; the University of Alabama’s Roy W. Spencer, a pioneer in the monitoring of global temperatures by satellite; Stephen McIntyre, primary author of the influential Climate Audit blog; and meteorologist John Coleman, who founded the Weather Channel in 1982.” Read more here.
Summary of 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season
EVER since Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ there has been a fear that every year will bring more destructive cyclones because of global warming.
The 2008 hurricane season for the Atlantic officially ended on November 30 and Phillip Klotzbach and William Gray have already published their 50 plus-page report on the season.
They explain that it was an active and destructive season with an early start followed by five major hurricanes.
They conclude that the Atlantic has seen a very large increase in major hurricanes during the last 14-year period as a result of the multi-decadal increase in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation and that this is not directly related to increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide or global sea surface temperatures.
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Summary of 2008 Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity and Verification of Author’s Seasonal and Monthly Forecasts. Phillip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, November 2008. http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/2008/nov2008/nov2008.pdf
2008 Likely to be Coolest of Decade
Global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, but cooler temperature is not evidence that global warming is slowing, say climate scientists. Read more here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.