Save the planet! Burn more coal!

9 January, 2012 by

Avoid this - drive your SUV

Environmentalists should be very careful what they wish for. Let’s look at the choices:

  1. a modest warming over the next few decades, which will eventually level out or decline as new technologies replace fossil fuels for efficient and economical energy generation (and solar and wind are neither efficient or economical, by the way); or,
  2. a rapid plunge into the next Ice Age, rendering much of the planet uninhabitable and killing much of the global population, and which is due, er, right about now.

Which would you choose?

A new paper suggests that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses may be averting option (2):

Earth could be entering a new Ice Age within the next millennium, but it might not, the deep freeze averted by warming from increased carbon dioxide emissions. Humans could be thwarting the next glacial inception, a new study says.

Even in the comparatively long time scales of Earth history, we’re kind of overdue for another ice age — our current Holocene era has lasted about 11,600 years, roughly 600 years longer than the average interglacial (between-ice-age) periods of the past. If atmospheric CO2 levels were lower, the next ice age might have started sometime within the next 1,000 years, according to researchers from University College London and Cambridge University.

Their conclusion is based in part on abrupt temperature changes in the overall temperature contrast between Greenland and Antarctica, according to a Cambridge news release. The North Atlantic would cool rapidly while Antarctica warms, fluctuations that would only happen if expanding ice sheets were calving icebergs huge enough to impact ocean circulation. These temperature see-saws can therefore be used to pinpoint the activation of a new ice age, a “glacial inception.”

Chronis Tzedakis from UC London and colleagues examined our present conditions, including temperature averages and solar radiation strength, and found a close analogue to the present, an era called Marine Isotope Stage 19, or about 780,000 years ago. The eras have a similar astronomical configuration and climate, although their CO2 trajectories are pretty different (ours is on the rise).

A phenomenon called insolation was a key factor here. Insolation is the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of solar radiation, which changes a tiny bit over tens of thousands of years due to tiny variations in Earth’s orbit around the sun. These little differences are one of the factors that can help trigger a cooling event, cascading toward an ice age. The insolation minimum in the MIS19 era was similar to our own, so it’s a valid analogy, the researchers say.

The team applied their glacial inception fingerprinting method to MIS19, looking at ice core samples, plankton remains and debris that would have floated on the encroaching ice, and determined at what point the glacial inception would have started. Then they compared that time frame to the Holocene time frame.

“Taking the [current era] to MIS19c analogy to its logical conclusion implies that the current interglacial would be nearing its end,” the researchers write. If, that is, atmospheric CO2 levels were comparable to the MIS19 era. Which they aren’t. This shows that while insolation is an important ingredient, apparently it’s not as potent an ice age determinant as CO2.

“The current insolation forcing and lack of new ice growth mean that orbital-scale variability will not be moderating the effects of anthropogenically induced global warming,” the authors conclude. (source)

The GWPF links to Australian Popular Science as the source, however the article has vanished from their site (cached version still exists here). Not sure if Popsci broke the embargo (it doesn’t appear on Nature Geoscience yet), or whether the Warm-mongers have got to it…

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Overfishing and pollution are main threats to ocean, not "acidification"

8 January, 2012 by

© Wall Street Journal

Greatest threat to marine ecosystem is…

UPDATE: Jo Nova links to a study which contains similar conclusions:

“Here, we present a compilation of continuous, high-resolution time series of upper ocean pH, collected using autonomous sensors, over a variety of ecosystems ranging from polar to tropical, open-ocean to coastal, kelp forest to coral reef. These observations reveal a continuum of month-long pH variability with standard deviations from 0.004 to 0.277 and ranges spanning 0.024 to 1.430 pH units. The nature of the observed variability was also highly site-dependent, with characteristic diel, semi-diurnal, and stochastic patterns of varying amplitudes. These biome-specific pH signatures disclose current levels of exposure to both high and low dissolved CO2, often demonstrating that resident organisms are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100.“

——–

“Ocean acidification.” How many times do we see that phrase in the mainstream media? The phrase intentionally creates the impression that the oceans are slowly turning into battery acid, eating away at shellfish and coral just as the phosphoric acid in fizzy drinks dissolves teeth. Just today in the Silly Moaning Herald publishes another alarming piece on the subject:

The uptake of carbon dioxide into the oceans drives a change in ocean chemistry, changing hydrogen levels and the concentration of carbonate ions that pteropods and other organisms use to build their calcium carbonate shells.

The higher acidity also eats away at the organisms’ shells.

“Southern Ocean waters are absorbing more carbon dioxide than anywhere else on the planet so if we are going to see an effect on the biology were going to see it first in the Southern Ocean,” Dr Roberts said.

Acidification is expected to increase significantly over the next century.

“We often call it the evil twin of climate change,” Dr Roberts said.

“The little critters that have got shells that are going to be eaten away by the acid, they’re in trouble.

“We’re really worried about whether they are going to be here in the future and how that will change the Southern Ocean food chain because it’s the biggest ocean in the world. (source)

Firstly, “acidification” is the term used because it sounds scarier than the more accurate alternatives “becoming less alkaline”, or “becoming more neutral” since as discussed here, the pH of the oceans has dropped slightly from 8.2 to about 8.1, still well short of neutral (7), let alone turning acidic.

Matt Ridley injects some sense into the debate in an article in the Wall Street Journal, in which he argues that natural variation in pH exceeds such tiny anthropogenic changes by at least an order of magnitude, that many studies show that shell formation can actually increase in less alkaline conditions, and that in any case overfishing and pollution are far more damaging to the marine ecosystems than “acidification”:

“On both a monthly and annual scale, even the most stable open ocean sites see pH changes many times larger than the annual rate of acidification,” say the authors of the study, adding that because good instruments to measure ocean pH have only recently been deployed, “this variation has been under-appreciated.” Over coral reefs, the pH decline between dusk and dawn is almost half as much as the decrease in average pH expected over the next 100 years. The noise is greater than the signal.

Another recent study, by scientists from the U.K., Hawaii and Massachusetts, concluded that “marine and freshwater assemblages have always experienced variable pH conditions,” and that “in many freshwater lakes, pH changes that are orders of magnitude greater than those projected for the 22nd-century oceans can occur over periods of hours.”

This adds to other hints that the ocean-acidification problem may have been exaggerated. For a start, the ocean is alkaline and in no danger of becoming acid (despite headlines like that from Reuters in 2009: “Climate Change Turning Seas Acid”). If the average pH of the ocean drops to 7.8 from 8.1 by 2100 as predicted, it will still be well above seven, the neutral point where alkalinity becomes acidity.

The central concern is that lower pH will make it harder for corals, clams and other “calcifier” creatures to make calcium carbonate skeletons and shells. Yet this concern also may be overstated. Off Papua New Guinea and the Italian island of Ischia, where natural carbon-dioxide bubbles from volcanic vents make the sea less alkaline, and off the Yucatan, where underwater springs make seawater actually acidic, studies have shown that at least some kinds of calcifiers still thrive—at least as far down as pH 7.8.

In a recent experiment in the Mediterranean, reported in Nature Climate Change, corals and mollusks were transplanted to lower pH sites, where they proved “able to calcify and grow at even faster than normal rates when exposed to the high [carbon-dioxide] levels projected for the next 300 years.” In any case, freshwater mussels thrive in Scottish rivers, where the pH is as low as five.

Laboratory experiments find that more marine creatures thrive than suffer when carbon dioxide lowers the pH level to 7.8. This is because the carbon dioxide dissolves mainly as bicarbonate, which many calcifiers use as raw material for carbonate.

Human beings have indeed placed marine ecosystems under terrible pressure, but the chief culprits are overfishing and pollution. By comparison, a very slow reduction in the alkalinity of the oceans, well within the range of natural variation, is a modest threat, and it certainly does not merit apocalyptic headlines. (source)

“Does not merit apocalyptic headlines.” Take note, SMH.

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SHOCK: China to introduce a carbon tax

7 January, 2012 by

Except that it will be just over $1.50 a tonne… from 2015… possibly… compared to Australia’s $23 a tonne (fifteen times as much)… from 2012… definitely.

Still madness.

Link.

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Arctic freshening not due to sea ice melt

7 January, 2012 by

Pure fiction then, and still is now

From The Science is Settled Department. Environmental activists and climate scientists on the AGW gravy train are so desperate to keep the scare afloat that they will find evidence of climate-induced changes in our planet wherever they look.

Everything can be attributed to climate change – it is the unfalsifiable hypothesis to end all unfalsifiable hypotheses. Once our scientist finds a plausible explanation that links a particular phenomenon (freshening of the Arctic waters, for example) to a man-made cause (melting sea ice caused by global warming, for example), he/she can stop looking for any other.

Especially when the consequences are potentially so dramatic – changes in salinity are thought to affect a major ocean current, the North Atlantic Conveyor, which, if interrupted, could “flip” the climate past a “tipping point” into a new Ice Age. They even made a film about it, The Day After Tomorrow, in which the special effects team went completely overboard to create the most terrifying images of what “might” happen if you keep driving your SUV and Australia doesn’t pass the carbon tax legislation:

Faced with such a possibility, who in their right mind could possibly disagree with taking urgent and drastic action to “tackle climate change”? Once the AGW box is ticked, job done.

Except that if our scientist had behaved as a proper scientist should, he/she may have looked deeper, and found that there might be other, more likely or convincing explanations. But taking that path runs the risk of missing out on the AGW angle, which would be a disaster for PR and funding. So that job is put on hold. For a while. Until the day after tomorrow, perhaps.

At least someone was brave enough to do it, however:

A new NASA and University of Washington study allays concerns that melting Arctic sea ice could be increasing the amount of freshwater in the Arctic enough to have an impact on the global “ocean conveyor belt” that redistributes heat around our planet. 

Lead author and oceanographer Jamie Morison of the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Seattle, and his team, detected a previously unknown redistribution of freshwater during the past decade from the Eurasian half of the Arctic Ocean to the Canadian half. Yet despite the redistribution, they found no change in the net amount of freshwater in the Arctic that might signal a change in the conveyor belt.

The team attributes the redistribution to an eastward shift in the path of Russian runoff through the Arctic Ocean, which is tied to an increase in the strength of the Northern Hemisphere’s west-to-east atmospheric circulation, known as the Arctic Oscillation. The resulting counterclockwise winds changed the direction of ocean circulation, diverting upper-ocean freshwater from Russian rivers away from the Arctic’s Eurasian Basin, between Russia and Greenland, to the Beaufort Sea in the Canada Basin bordered by the United States and Canada. The stronger Arctic Oscillation is associated with two decades of reduced atmospheric pressure over the Russian side of the Arctic. Results of the NASA- and National Science Foundation-funded study are published Jan. 5 in the journal Nature.

…

“Changes in the volume and extent of Arctic sea ice in recent years have focused attention on melting ice,” said co-author and senior research scientist Ron Kwok of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages Grace for NASA. “The Grace and ICESat data allow us to now examine the impacts of widespread changes in ocean circulation.”

Kwok said on [the] whole, Arctic Ocean salinity is similar to what it was in the past, but the Eurasian Basin has become more saline, and the Canada Basin has freshened. In the Beaufort Sea, the water is the freshest it’s been in 50 years of record keeping, with only a tiny fraction of that freshwater originating from melting ice and the vast majority coming from Russian river water. 

…

“To better understand climate-related changes in sea ice and the Arctic overall, climate models need to more accurately represent the Arctic Oscillation’s low pressure and counterclockwise circulation on the Russian side of the Arctic Ocean,” Morison added. (source)

You’re saying the models aren’t perfect? Who’d have thought.

Link to Nature abstract here.

(h/t The Register)

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Chinese airlines refuse to pay EU carbon blackmail

6 January, 2012 by

Calling Europe's bluff?

As ACM reported last month, the EU is in danger of triggering a trade war with its demand that airlines pay an additional carbon tax when flying within its territory. Obviously thinking that opposition would crumble, the EU is standing firm. Unfortunately, however, so are the Chinese:

CHINA’S four leading airlines have thrown down the gauntlet to the European Union by saying they will refuse to pay carbon charges levied under Europe’s emissions trading scheme.

The defiant message – which could lead to a ban from European airports – marks an escalation of resistance to the scheme, which came into effect this week and is also opposed by the US.

Despite the growing threat of a trade war, Europe sees the cap-and-trade system for aviation emissions as a crucial tool for reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Since Sunday, any airline using an airport in the EU has been obliged to participate.

But China’s leading aviation body said it would not.

”China will not co-operate with the European Union on the ETS, so Chinese airlines will not impose surcharges on customers relating to the emissions tax,” said the deputy secretary-general of the China Air Transport Association, Cai Haibo.

The association represents Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, which fly millions of passengers to Europe each year. (source)

Legal action is being considered. Watch this space.

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Cool 2010 and 2011, but planet "still warming" says BoM

5 January, 2012 by

Still warming, just you wait…

If there were no agenda of global warming, there would be no need for comments like those of David Jones, reported in The Australian today.

The fact that a senior Bureau meteorologist believes it necessary to defend model projections that the planet will continue to warm, despite two cooler years (and a relatively flat global temperature profile for the last decade), reveals the motivations at work behind the scenes.

Environment editor at The Australian, Graham Lloyd, doesn’t help to dispel this impression, and warns “those looking to disprove climate change” that the planet is still warming [er, who’s trying to “disprove climate change” again?].

“In 2011, the La Nina and heavy rainfall acted like an evaporative cooler for Australia,” said bureau climate change spokesman David Jones.

“The year 2010 was relatively cool in recent historical context and 2011 was cooler again.”

Mr Jones said there was no evidence to link the strong La Nina weather systems with changing global temperatures.

“We have had this regular cycle of La Nina and El Nino,” he said. “The strongest El Nino on record was in 1997 and we have seen one of the strongest La Ninas on record in 2010-11.”

Mr Jones said the climate science was not very clear on what would happen with El Nino and La Nina patterns, particularly at this early stage of global warming.

“We have only seen one degree of warming so far but we will see substantially more as we move through the century, but it is probably too early to draw any concrete relationship between hotter temperatures and La Nina,” he said.

“One simple thing we can say is we know La Nina are historically cooler for Australia but there is a big difference between variability and climate change.”

The BOM climate statement said Australia’s mean rainfall total for last year was 699mm, which was 234mm above the long-term average of 465mm, making it the third-wettest year since comparable records began in 1900.

Where’s Tim Flannery when you need him to explain all his failed predictions of a never-ending drought?

The Australian area averaged mean temperature was 0.14C below the 1961-1990 average of 21.81C. Last year, maximum temperatures averaged 0.25C below normal across the country, while minimum temperatures averaged 0.03C below normal.

And then Jones goes into full prickly defensive mode:

“Despite the slightly cooler conditions, the country’s 10-year average continues to demonstrate the rising trend in temperatures, with 2002-2011 likely to rank in the top two warmest 10-year periods on record for Australia, at 0.52C above the long-term average,” the bureau said.

“If you are interested in determining whether the planet is warming, you look at the global temperature,” Mr Jones said. (source)

And if you look at global temperatures for the last decade, there isn’t much warming to see there either.

If the BoM hadn’t sold out to climate alarmism, there wouldn’t be any need for such awkward justifications.

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Shameless plug: Bloggies 2012

3 January, 2012 by

Bloggies 2012

If any readers feel like nominating ACM for a Bloggie award in the Best Australian and New Zealand blog, I would be most honoured.

We have no chance of winning this prestigious award, but if we get into the shortlist we may generate some publicity for the message we are trying to communicate, which can only be a good thing. [Read more…]

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Christopher Booker: UK in a "mad little bubble"

2 January, 2012 by

Mad bubble

Climate sense as always:

In the 20 years since the scare was launched, global man-made CO2 emissions have risen by 50 per cent. But at the end of 2011, global temperatures measured by Nasa satellites stood barely a tenth of a degree Celsius higher than their average throughout the 32 years since satellite measurements began – far lower than the projected warming. The computer models on which the scare relied have proved so wrong that it is incomprehensible how they were ever taken seriously.

Hardly surprisingly, in 2011 any attempt to get global agreement on drastic meaures to meet this supposed threat finally expired, as the third mammoth UN conference in as many years fizzled out in Durban. There is no chance that China, India, Brazil, Russia or even the US will agree to a replacement for the failed Kyoto Protocol – not when China alone, with its coal-fired power stations, is increasing its CO2 emissions each year by an amount greater than the UK’s entire annual output.

On all sides, mad schemes dreamed up to meet this imaginary crisis are falling apart. The EU’s carbon trading scheme is collapsing, The dream of solar power is disintegrating, as country after country slashes its subsidies, and firms set up to cash in on the bonanza close in droves (5,000 in Germany alone). Evaporating likewise is the fantasy of “carbon capture and storage” – CO2 from power stations being piped away, at vast expense, and buried in holes in the ground.

More and more, this leaves Britain isolated in a mad little bubble of its own, the only country in the world committed by law to the completely unrealisable goal of cutting CO2 emissions by 80 per cent within 40 years. (source)

Add Australia to the mad little bubble as well, with its pointless carbon tax, albeit nowhere near as insane as the UK’s efforts to destroy its economy permanently.

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New Year starts with thespian climate madness

1 January, 2012 by

Climate comedy

Those in showbiz seem eager to jump on the “global warming” bandwagon more readily than most (think Bono, Leo, Cate etc etc). So it’s not surprising that writers are using their works to disseminate climate propaganda, as the Silly Moaning Herald reports:

CLIMATE change was supposed to be ”the greatest moral challenge of our time”, as the former prime minister Kevin Rudd put it, but it was pigeon excrement that caused headaches for Nigel Jamieson.

Inspired by the 2009 Copenhagen climate change conference, Jamieson’s As The World Tipped features a stage that slowly becomes vertical, leaving performers hanging in the air.

Floods, famine and drought will be screened on the vertical stage as actors perform aerial theatrics in the show, which will play at Sydney Festival’s first night next Saturday and at the Parra Opening Party on January 14.

Jamieson said the spectacle of harassed bureaucrats failing to notice as the world around them slides towards disaster ”seemed the perfect metaphor” for the climate change debate.

[…] the night’s producer, Vernon Guest, said a major theatrical piece such as As The World Tipped was important to keep the event fresh. Highlighting the danger of climate change inaction also attracted Guest.

”It is an important message that is on everyone’s mind at the moment both politically and socially,” he said. ”To have an environmental message woven into a large theatre work is really important to us.” (source)

Hilarious (unintentionally, of course), all reported without any critical thought by the SMH.

By the way, Jamieson lives in a “straw bale house.” Kinda figures.

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