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GLOBAL WARMING IS BALONEYIn one of my earlier posts on global warming I was referring to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean around it acting like a fridge. Now there is more evidence that it does... Global warming thus is baloney... what we should urgently recognise is Global Hotting... It is difficult to know anything apart from the “minute
Note: THE TEXT OF THIS POST DISAPPEARED and I have not been able to find it... As well the original Toon went the same way. So I have managed to recreate the toon with bits from another Toon. The original text explained some of my early calculations which showed we were in trouble back then. We still are. See new postings such as What is global warming?
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marginal sanity
Gus I have a disconcerting feeling that you are quite sane indeed.
Global Warming
Gus, you are saying lots of things I have been pushing in my barrow for the last year or two. Deforestation is one of the greatest factors in CO2 increase which is the major factor in global warming the other of course is burning of coal worldwide to generate electricity which we now can't do without. There was an interesting interview or should I say horrifying interview between ABC's Tony Jones and James Lovelock the Gaia man. I can send you a copy if you didn't see it last year 18/10/04. In it Lovelock predicts the possibility of the Atlantic Drift becoming a real flowing Gulf Stream precipitating weather crises in Europe.
Could we be now seeing the start of such an event? Media reports that Greenland is melting. Glaciers are peeling off at an unprecedented rate and we know that the same is taking place in Antarctica. Lovelock notes that from the last iceage 12000 years ago, the temperature change to now was 3.5 deg.C. The sea level was 120 m lower than it is now and there were glaciers down as far as London.
We are now starting to experience a fairly major melt. Islands could vanish in the Pacific and we could be in a lot of trouble. If we had a truly democratic government, the problem would be acknowledged and a bipartisan non party action with a fair bit of clout would be up and running. Instead of that we have a government that won't even be party to the Kyoto protocol which in itself is only thin end of the wedge stuff. And whilst the polar bears are running out of habitat and the glaciers are melting we have Hazelwood power station in Victoria, an outdated system at best, applying for permission to dig up another 20 years brown coal. And I'll bet they get it. And the Tasmanians still tearing down pristine forest for bloody woodchips. Same thing happening in Victoria. There is a train passing through Sale daily from Bairnsdale with around 24 flat tops loaded to the gunwhales with hardwood going direct to Geelong to a woodchip plant. What hope is there?
By the way, I believe that West Papua was the next largest area of pure forest to the Amazon and the Indonesian TNI who have been named the "Timber Mafia" in West Papua are causing boatloads of this precious stuff to head for China where it is milled. I believe it finds its way into Australia as 'merbau'.
Cheers Gus.
Global Dimming
Hey guys, have either of you caught up with the Global Dimming theory? It was on 4 Corners I think a few weeks ago. I understood it at the time but it's not my area and it is rather confusing as I suspect no one actually knows anything at this stage.
It seems this global dimming may accelerate any global warming in time if either concept is fact.
Best.
More about Global Dimming?
In my earlier post on Global Warming I did mention Global dimming as one of the mitigating factors. A lot more can be said on this subject alone (checks and balancing over the Global warming) and it can be expanded a lot more. Global dimming (due to pollution etc) is a double-edged sword. It reduces the sunlight hitting the earth in area affected by pollution (reduces heat reach the ground) but it also can "trap" the heat that is there. The whole system can then get out of balance due to the unevenness of pollution spread. Plenty more can be said.
Warming hits 'tipping point'
Melt down
From the ABC
Top scientist predicts 3 degree temperature rise
The British Government's chief scientist said the world must immediately put into place measures to address global warming, even if they take decades to produce results.
Professor David King says global temperatures are likely to rise by at least three degrees Celsius.
Officially the Government shares the European Union's policy of not allowing temperatures to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius.
But Professor King says British Prime Minister Tony Blair is unlikely to gain global agreement to limit emissions at anything less than three degrees.
Professor King admits that science suggests that a three degree rise could endanger the water supplies of between one and three billion people.
It could wreck half the world's wildlife reserves and make it impossible for many major forest systems to survive.
He said in Britain, the main threat will be flooding and "coastal attack" as a result of rising sea levels.
He lashed out at politicians who feel the answer lies in new technologies which produce cleaner fuels, saying they ought to start listening to scientists instead.
"There is a difference between optimism and (putting one's) head in the sand," he said.
"Quite clearly what we have to do as we move forward with these discussions is see that this consensus position of the scientific community is brought right into the table where the discussions are taking place."
read more at the ABC and the BBC
See also cartoon and blog, "US Global warming solution" and "Not-the-Kyoto-Protocol", and take note of dates
cooking au non-naturel
From the Independent
3 degrees: Chief scientist warns bigger rise in world's temperature will put 400 million at risk
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
Published: 15 April 2006
The world's temperature is on course to rise by more than three degrees Centigrade despite efforts to combat global warming, Britain's chief scientist has warned.
Sir David King issued a stark wake-up call that climate change could cause devastating consequences such as famine and drought for hundreds of millions of people unless the world's politicians take more urgent action.
Britain and the rest of the European Union have signed up to a goal of limiting the temperature rise to two degrees. In his strongest warning yet on the issue, Sir David suggested the EU limit will be exceeded.
According to computer-modelled predictions for the Government, a three-degree rise in temperatures could put 400 million more people at risk of hunger; leave between one and three billion more people at risk of water stress; cause cereal crop yields to fall by between 20 and 400 million tons; and destroy half the world's nature reserves.
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Gus invites you to read lots more at the independent and through out this site for more bits on this most important problem... Although the figures of the chief scientist in the UK are slightly more pessimistic than Gus' own conservative average estimates in time-span (calculated on the amount of petroleum products burnt every year over one hundred years, as well as the deforestation and other incidentals such as dimming and volumetric expansion of water), they are in line with what we can and should expect. Presently since the beginning of the year, the temperatures in Sydney have been on record highs and underestimated by Gus at 2 degrees+ above average (which itself is already higher now than at the beginning of last century. These temperature also often are up to 8 degrees above average for long periods). I urge you start making a fuss about this incoming freight train that is impossible to stop but we should slow it down, peacefully of course... because if nothing is massively done instantly then the rise wont be 3 degrees... it will be 6 degrees and then 9 degrees as stated in one of my blogs. We are faced with an accelerated temperature change that plateaus a few times until the resultant is a very thin band of land is only useable and the sky is only a mass of warm water vapor... We are lucky that most of the planet surface is water... and water is slow to heat up...
A 6 degree temperature rise would be catastrophic for at least 5 billion people and uncomfortable for the rest... at nine degrees, a few millions of us would barely survive...
think about it... Imagine a New Year's day in Sydney with a 53 degree in the shade... and tropical weather in Tassie...
We need to use the solar energy that touches the earth (concentrate it for our own energy needs), that would process it without adding any back to the equation...
No longer sceptical
From the independent
Attenborough: Climate change is the major challenge facing the world
By David Attenborough
Published: 24 May 2006
I was sceptical about climate change. I was cautious about crying wolf. I am always cautious about crying wolf. I think conservationists have to be careful in saying things are catastrophic when, in fact, they are less than catastrophic.
I have seen my job at the BBC as a presenter to produce programmes about natural history, just as the Natural History Museum would be interested in showing a range of birds of paradise - that's the sort of thing I've been doing. And in almost every big series I've made, the most recent one being Planet Earth, I've ended up by talking about the future, and possible dangers. But, with climate change, I was sceptical. That is true.
Also, I'm not a chemist or a climatologist or a meteorologist; it isn't for me to suddenly stand up and say I have decided the climate is changing. That's not my expertise. The television gives you an unfair and unjustified prominence but just because your face is on the telly doesn't mean you're an expert on meteorology.
But I'm no longer sceptical. Now I do not have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world.
read more at the Independent
Foot prints in the dust
From Nature via the NYT
Subtropical Arctic Ocean temperatures during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum
Appy Sluijs1,10, Stefan Schouten2,10, Mark Pagani3, Martijn Woltering2, Henk Brinkhuis1, Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté2,4, Gerald R. Dickens5, Matthew Huber6, Gert-Jan Reichart4, Ruediger Stein7, Jens Matthiessen7, Lucas J. Lourens4, Nikolai Pedentchouk3, Jan Backman8, Kathryn Moran9 and the Expedition 302 Scientists33
Top of page
The Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum, 55 million years ago, was a brief period of widespread, extreme climatic warming1, 2, 3, that was associated with massive atmospheric greenhouse gas input4. Although aspects of the resulting environmental changes are well documented at low latitudes, no data were available to quantify simultaneous changes in the Arctic region. Here we identify the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum in a marine sedimentary sequence obtained during the Arctic Coring Expedition5. We show that sea surface temperatures near the North Pole increased from 18 °C to over 23 °C during this event. Such warm values imply the absence of ice and thus exclude the influence of ice-albedo feedbacks on this Arctic warming. At the same time, sea level rose while anoxic and euxinic conditions developed in the ocean's bottom waters and photic zone, respectively. Increasing temperature and sea level match expectations based on palaeoclimate model simulations6, but the absolute polar temperatures that we derive before, during and after the event are more than 10 °C warmer than those model-predicted. This suggests that higher-than-modern greenhouse gas concentrations must have operated in conjunction with other feedback mechanisms—perhaps polar stratospheric clouds7 or hurricane-induced ocean mixing8—to amplify early Palaeogene polar temperatures.
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Gus urges:
PLEASE read all the blogs from this line of blogs... Climatic change can be very fast...
And as an aside, let it be known Gus humbly sees himself as a Jack of all trade and master of most... although I still make mistakes but I try to be as careful as possible to minimise them.
But I have worked on many projects ranging from cleaning dunnies, mixing concrete for brikies, to research in the nuclear energy, and I have invested a lot of time in many other fields of knowledge and activities, including analysis and synthesis paleogeography of the planet with scientists. This has included climatic changes associated with continental movements.
Anyone with a brain cannot claim that a continent like Australia is "stable" and many furphies abound in regard to its age... In fact, as a continent Australia is very very young — about 45 million years as it was attached to Antarctica till that time. As a surface, it has been more or less weathering away to reveal its older rocks, has had less upheaval than most other plates but most types of older rocks can be found in other continents if we dig far enough.
As far as being a stable plate, Continent-Australia has been hitting the edge of another plate quite recently in geological terms and this is leading to seismic activity along the north of Australia... we have seen the recent results. New Guinea, Indonesia are most likely to be the result of "our" continent pushing north at a fair speed of 7 centimetres per year. Since 1900, Australia has moved north by a whopping 7.42 metres.
If we go by the same phenomenon that has propelled India sub-contiment northwards from its earlier position next to Antarctica (If my memory is correct this split happened about 90 million years ago) it is possible to suggest that New Guinea could rise very quickly like the Himalayas did when "Contimental"-India hit the Eurasian plate.
The "stability" of Australia (or any other continents) can be compromised very quickly. In another blog I have expressed concerns that people can think of burying radio active waste that will decay to a half life of 250,000 years because the inside of the continent is "stable"... when, who knows, the continent may split up within 5,000 years or so with major upheaval. (Read my other blog that mentions the two major lines of earthquakes meeting in the Banda Sea...)
Think clearly... in 5,000 years, this continent will have moved north by a whopping 350 metres... Major upheaval are ahead of us. In 50,000 years — which only represents a fifth of the half-life decay of uranium — this continent will have moved north by 3.5 kilometres. This would lead to the creation of major mountains, adding up to 2 kilometres on the height of New Guinea... in 250,000 years, New Guinea can be as high as the Himalayas and our nuclear waste will still be half as radio-toxic as when we buried it... and would have spilled its guts in the Uluru Sea a long time before that...
Why do continents and bits of the earth move like this? The enormous currents of the molten core of the earth are very powerful. Since the Earth was created, continents have shifted by enormous amounts... We owe the planet and the life it carries not to fiddle with its own fragile balances, especially in this day and age of enlightenment about nature. We have damaged this planet more than any other factor since the disappearance of the dinosaurs... We need to come to term with that — and reduce our foot print for our own sake and the sake of other species who are suffering because of us...
Please oh please spread these facts as much as you can... You know why.
Just a few degrees...
From the ABC
Average daily temperatures continuing to increase: scientist
An Australian scientist who contributes to the world's foremost authority on climate change says the scientific consensus is that average daily temperatures will increase by as much as 5.8 degrees over the next century.
The CSIRO's Dr Penny Whetton says the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is due to be finalised by early next year.
While she will not comment on what the panel's findings are likely to be, she says not much has changed since 2001 when the panel made its last assessment.
"The science, as it stands now, is really much the same in that if we factor in those range of future emission scenarios and the uncertainty we have in how fast the warming will occur for a given level of greenhouse gasses - then we're still looking at a possibility of warmings as high as 5.8 degrees," she said.
Erwin Jackson from the Australian Conservation Foundation says the assessment will add to the case for a reduction in greenhouse pollution.
"We've seen the scientific community become increasingly strident over the last few years, calling on governments to take more serious action," he said.
"Because if we don't take action, we're looking at Australia with no Great Barrier Reef, with no Kakadu, with our major cities and our major rivers being hammered by increasingly severe droughts.
"We really need to get on with the job now and reduce emissions."
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Gus: quite interestingly in one of my earlier blogs buried somewhere on this site I mentioned my own calculations that came to an increase of 6 degrees by the end of the century, with a bracket of 5.8 to 6.2 or in that vicinity in accuracy...
MacFarlane — hot under the collar about Gore
From our ABC
Rann slams Macfarlane's criticism of Gore
South Australian Premier Mike Rann has accused the Federal Resources Minister, Ian MacFarlane, of lunacy over his criticism of the former US vice president.
Al Gore is in Australia to promote his new climate change documentary, and criticised Australia for not signing the Kyoto protocol.
Mr MacFarlane responded by saying Mr Gore's views were driven by commercial interests.
Mr Rann says Mr MacFarlane's comments will cause embarrassment for Australia around the world.
"It is just lunacy for the Howard Government to describe warnings about global warming as just entertainment," he said.
"I mean last year all of the G8 leaders met; George Bush, Tony Blair, the president of France and others and essentially agreed about the threat of climate change and what needed to happen to combat it."
Polar bears are feeling the heat
From our ABC
Polar bears drown, islands appear in Arctic thaw
Polar bears are drowning and receding Arctic glaciers have uncovered previously unknown islands in a drastic thaw that is being blamed on global warming.
Signs of huge changes are appearing around the Arctic region due to unusual warmth.
Rune Bergstrom, the environmental adviser to the Governor of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago about 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole, says islands as large as 300 metres by 100 metres have been revealed.
"We know about three new islands this year that have been uncovered because the glaciers have retreated," he said.
The head of England's Scott Polar Research Institute, Julian Dowdeswell, says that during a trip this northern summer he saw polar bears that had apparently been stranded at sea by melting ice.
"We saw a couple of polar bears in the sea east of Svalbard - one of them looked to be dead and the other one looked to be exhausted," he said.
The bears generally live around the fringes of the ice, where they find it easiest to hunt seals.
NASA projected this week that Arctic sea ice is likely to recede in 2006 to a point close to a low recorded in 2005, as part of a melting trend in recent decades.
Global warming
World Wildlife Fund Arctic program director Samantha Smith says this year's unusual Arctic conditions extend from Svalbard to Alaska.
She says the shrinking ice should be a wake-up call for governments to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from power plants, factories and cars, which most scientists say are causing global warming.
read more at ABC
Full frontal global warming
From our beloved ABC
Opposition attacks Govt over climate change
The Federal Opposition is stepping up its attack on the Government over climate change in the wake of the Sir Nicholas Stern report.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair says the world needs to invest heavily in fighting climate change if it is to avoid a future economic catastrophe.
The British Government has released a comprehensive report on climate change and the global economy.
Mr Blair says the Stern report is the most important report on the future that he has ever received as Prime Minister.
"It has demolished the last remaining argument for inaction. Urgent action will prevent a catastrophe and investment will pay us back many times in the future," he said.
Undertaken by the former World Bank chief economist, the report says 1 per cent of the world economy should be spent tackling climate change. It also recommends a global emissions trading scheme.
Later this year, Sir Nicholas will go to the US, alongside former vice president Al Gore, to promote a unified global approach.
'Frozen in time'
Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese has accused the Government of dodging the issue.
"On this - the most important issue facing the global community - you can't fudge," he said.
"You can't say on the one hand - Kyoto Protocol, if we ratified it would ruin the economy, and then in the next breath say, we'll meet the target. It doesn't make sense."
Mr Albanese says the Stern report on climate change is being ignored by the Government.
"We are so far behind the rest of the world on climate change that it is an embarrassment," he said.
"The Howard Government is frozen in time while the globe warms around it."
Labor says the report highlights the need for an emissions trading system and for Australia to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
The Government says it would support a new global emissions trading system, provided all major countries sign up.
Parliamentary secretary for the environment Greg Hunt says the Government is already acting.
"I say there is a better way and that is what we are doing which is investing directly on the supply side of emissions control," Mr Hunt said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has defended Australia, saying the nation is taking action on climate change. She says the US has also changed its attitude on the issue.
"It isn't the case that nothing is happening in Australia. Australia has more cause than many other countries in the world to understand the force of these arguments," she said.
'Kyoto flawed'
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane wants a completely new approach.
"Sir Nicholas Stern said we need a global carbon trading arrangement - Kyoto is not a global trading arrangement," he said.
"It is around about or even less than 45 per cent of the global emitters."
Mr Hunt also says the entire Kyoto protocol is flawed.
"What is happening as a result of this great moral measure that they talk about is a movement of emissions from one position to another and that's why because there is a fundamental flaw and they don't want to acknowledge it," he said.
The Federal Government points to its $2 billion low emissions technology fund as an example of its action against climate change.
The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) in Australia has welcomed the Stern report on the economics of dealing with climate change.
BCSE executive director Rick Brazzale says the Federal Government must accept the urgency of Australia curbing greenhouse emission from the energy sector.
"It's not really going to cost a lot of money and it's not really going to adversely impact on our economic growth," he said.
"It might just slow our economic growth a little bit over the course of the next 20 years, but it's not a significant cost at all.
"Certainly compared to the costs of more severe drought, more severe bushfires and the water challenges that we have at present."
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Mr MacFarlane is a bit dishonest here... "Why is the Kyoto Protocol around about or even less than 45 per cent of the global emitters?" Gus asks, then answers promptly: " Because the US that represent about 27 per cent of the emitters does not want to join " for economic reasons", and from that, Australia is taking its cue... China and India will join if the US joins. Then about 99 per cent of the emitters would be in the protocol.
And let me add here, that these target reductions are far from being enough. As mentioned on this site at least a year ago, we should have stopped all emissions of CO2 in 1996 (I calculated that point back in 1994), the year which was the point of "no return" until the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are back to what they were in something like 1700. This means we have to stop emitting anything AND clean up the skies by having more trees (not grass or crops) that process and slowly reduce the PRESENT CO2... under these extreme condition it would still take about 100 years to bring CO2 levels to those of 1990 (pre turning point). In the meantime, a lot of "damage" would have occurred anyway (ice melting and so-forth). At the rate we are going my calculated estimate of 12 degrees (hard to be more precise) — put forth in the blog at the head of this line of blogs — is not out of the question.
The increasing effects of the warming are somewhat delayed by several things including dimming and these two major factors below. This delay gives us a false sense of "security" when the urgency is full-on...
1) While a certain amount of the polar ice is melting, "it will cool our whisky and soda"... That means the temperature does not rise very much in the temperate regions, and in some places can cool. A slight southerly shift in the position of the weather patterns is to be expected nonetheless in the southern hemisphere. In the Northern hemisphere, more erratic patterns are to be seen.
2) as the average sea temperature (present average of 3.5 degrees) is below that of its minimum volume, the sea will not rise much.
But as soon as:
1) the ice melt reach a critical point at which it's not cooling our "whisky and soda" anymore and
2) the sea temperature passes that of its minimum volume (4 degrees for freshwater), the sea will rise faster than expected.
Then the full frontal effect of Climate Warming will be felt and increasing. At the rate of melts experienced since the 1930s and its increasing speed now, I conservatively give between 10 to 20 years for a full-blown hit. No gradual or gentle stuff then. On paper I actually have estimated 5 years from now, if not next year ...
a lost link
The truth is hard to take
From the ABC
MPs told not to be mesmerised by Stern report
The Prime Minister has told Coalition MPs not to get mesmerised by the Stern report on the implications of climate change.
The report, commissioned by the British Government, says if countries do not act now the world will face a depression worse than that of the 1930s.
The report also puts the worldwide cost of global warming and its effects at $A9 trillion.
John Howard has told his party room that science shows the globe is getting warmer and the issue has escalated in the public consciousness.
But he says they should not be mesmerised by one report.
______________________
Gus: Ah Johnnee, the truth is hard to take ... but since the process is quite slow, very very slow compared to a nuclear bomb exploding, you have the luxury to dither for a while... as the problem becomes more entrenched... Please do the future a favour and go away to let people with true visions and knowledge take over your position, a position that you make more and more ridiculous by the day. Go away... little Johnnee, go away...
Keeping appearances...
Aust pushes for new Kyoto deal at UN climate talks
Australia will seek support for what [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1786756.htm|it is calling] a 'new Kyoto' deal when ministerial talks begin at the United Nations climate change conference in Nairobi today.
Environment Minister Ian Campbell leaves Australia today for the next round of UN talks on climate change.
The main focus of the meeting in Nairobi will be negotiating new commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions beyond 2012.
Australia has previously refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol because big polluters like India and China are not involved.
Senator Campbell says there is growing support to set up a 'new Kyoto deal'.
"There's been countries like Canada and the UK I have good discussions with over recent weeks - they're keen to find something that works," he said.
"Even the existing Kyoto signatories know it's not working and we need a better agreement."
But Greens Senator Christine Milne, who is in Nairobi, says the idea is not helpful.
"It's just seen as a joke," she said.
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Gus: A sad joke indeed... Costello, now "promoted" as the chairman of the G20 is also perceived as the also-ran whatever amongst many conservatives in this country... Johnnee appears not to sure what to do with him... while Pretty-face is waiting in the wings... But in regard to the Kyoto protocol — even the French with 76 per cent of their electricity coming from nuclear energy and an exorbitant petrol price find it hard to meet their targeted reductions... While Australia, under the leadership of the "Punch and Judy" duet, twaddle the fiddle and burns whatever as if carbon dioxide was its primary industry... A lot of hot air coming out of Canberra makes sure we're keeping with the American Joneses while appearing to do somethin'. So How does Mr Costello proposes to do better than Kyoto — a minimalist agreement, still too hard to manage in full... — is not even worth a guess since we all know his new blah blah blah is for show... And we really need to do a hundred times better... But take the plunge, Mr Costello, and sign Kyoto, then you will have earned the right to suggest a bit better if possible...
white Christmas?