Source of image above: http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/2014/01/08/offthecharts/

Gus: despite some heavy rain for the last couple of days, Sydney experienced its driest summer in 27 years, Brisbane had the driest winter in 14 years and Perth had its second driest summer ever (temperature for tomorrow 36 C)...

El Nino has kicked in... Remember that I have recently predicted (hopefully I am wrong) a few days in Sydney above 37 C from mid-March till after the equinox on the 21st of March... and remember that, back in November, I predicted MAJOR storms to hit the UK this northern hemisphere winter (record wettest winter).

Global warming is real and far more serious than just a few hot or rainy days... 

The actual numeric progression highlighted below should ALARM ANY POLITICIAN AND THEIR DAUGHTERS... The addition of October in the cycle should also scare the budgie smugglers off a priestly Abbott...

It is most likely that more bad bush-fires will come earlier next summer (2014-15) in Australia. The dilettante attitude of Tony Abbott is not acceptable. 

Meanwhile if one studies the chart of the "Polar Vortexes" that engulfed the US east coast recently, one can clearly see that there were unusual warmer air masses NORTH of the vortexes... And the "vortexes" then travelled across the Atlantic as "major" storms and the UK experienced its WETTEST WINTER on record... 

Climate change as induced by humans burning off carbon modifies and destabilises the "normal" boundaries of air convection on the planet between which the jet streams flow at high altitude. The displacement of the air mass currents changes the position of the jet streams which during the US winter went totally out of normal range in rhythm, extent and in intensity. CO2 changes the behaviour of water vapour by "incremental" heat. CLOUDY water vapour turns into CLEAR water vapour which in turns lets more evaporation leading to more saturation of water vapour that mixing with more CO2 will warm up and become clear. The process of this "complex" self-feeding cool (there will be some very cold pockets) and warm cycle is gaining heat (energy) nonetheless. There is enough EXTRA Human induced CO2 in the atmosphere to raise the present temperature beyond 6 degrees C. 

Presently, Beijing, China is experiencing a massive smog. They are calling it a "nuclear winter" as the particles density would cool the atmosphere in that region... BUT THE NEXT PART OF THIS CYCLE WOULD BE MOST LIKELY A VERY HOT SUMMER IN CHINA 2014 WITH MASSIVE DROUGHT or/and flooding in some regions there...

Could this SMOG be related to a displacement of air masses, including a slowed-down jet stream? This smog "air mass" has been arrested over China. Wind patterns would "normally" reduce the intensity of the excessive fumes coming from cars, factories and power stations. 

Here in China, the smog events are also intensifying in duration, particle counts and occurrence. Unless China reduces its emissions of CO2 — thus reduce also all the other smog gasses such as NO, NO2, SO, SO2, O3 (ozone), CO (carbon monoxide) — all by-products of burning coal, the problem will intensify. But China is already doing far more to reduce (already 15 % reduction) its emissions per capita than Australia (the greatest polluter on earth per capita) is doing. With ningnong Abbott in charge of Australian politics, this situation is going to get worse and is 100 per cent unacceptable.

Tony Abbott’s top scientific and business advisers are at odds over the science of climate change with the chief scientist, Ian Chubb, strongly rejecting assertions that climate science is a “delusion” or a result of “groupthink”.

Chubb said the scientific evidence for human-induced global warming was so overwhelming that those who reject it are usually forced to “impugn the messenger” with “stupid expressions like ‘groupthink’” or “silly” arguments that global warming is a “delusion”.

Among those who have used the phrase “groupthink” in relation to the debate about climate science are the head of the prime minister’s business advisory group, Maurice Newman, and the man chosen by the prime minister to head the review of the renewable energy target, businessman Dick Warburton. Two months ago Newman wrote a newspaper article describing climate science as a “scientific delusion”.

Chubb, who as chief scientist is supposed to provide high-level independent advice to the prime minister and other ministers, was speaking at the launch of the final report on Australia’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts by the independent climate change authority, a body the Abbott government is seeking to abolish.

“Climate science is one of the most heavily scrutinised areas of science I have ever experienced,” said Chubb.

“The overwhelming bulk of it has stood the test of that scrutiny … I find a lot of the science compelling.”

He added: “As a scientist I would always put in the caveat we are dealing with probabilities … but we are seeing changes and if you don’t believe it you have to impugn the messenger, you’ve got to say it is groupthink or some stupid expression like that.

“Scientists are human beings and sometimes they will make mistakes, but … no reputable scientist disputes the main theses in this area, it has been so closely scrutinised … so it would be really silly to say [greenhouse emissions] have no effect or that it is a delusion.”

In 2010, when he was still ABC chairman, Newman said the broadcaster’s coverage of climate change was an example of groupthink, with insufficient coverage of more sceptical views.

Co-writing an article for Quadrant in 2011, Warburton described climate science as a product of “group think”.

Both men have said they believe the climate changes, but question the extent to which the changes are caused by human activity.

The chairman of the climate change authority, Bernie Fraser, a former governor of the Reserve Bank, said he agreed with Chubb’s assessment of the compelling nature of climate science and said he thought those who did not accept it were either “mavericks at the fringes” or “those who speak in the short-term interests of industry”.

And Fraser also took issue with the “uncivilised” nature of Australia’s climate debate, including “the wild assertions blaming every lost job on the carbon tax … assertions not based on any objective consideration of the evidence”.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/27/abbotts-advisers-at-odds-climate-change

Sorry, but even using the word "irrefutable" rings warning bells.  Every time there's a hot day some Green tweets "that's climate change" and you bloody well know that they're only saying it to score political points.  Yep a s certain set of data suggests that climate change exists.  However, the dogmatic approach of most who espouse the notion, usually with an implied subtext that those who don't believe in CC are ignorant dickhes, is what's more and more putting me off subcribing to the theory.

Nothing is ever irrefutable... Though the arguments presented by the denialists of global warming don't stack up against the evidence. The theory of relativity, the theory of quantum mechanics are all theories until proven wrong. Einstein spent 30 years of his life trying to disprove quantum mechanics. The quantum theory could be "proven wrong" as the degree of accuracy of our measuring tools in this little world of uncertainty can't go beyond 1 millionth of the decimal point. 

On the global warming front, though, the science is based on observations, experiments and on the records of past events —when the gaseous mix of the atmosphere was very similar to that of present conditions. Lord Monckton brings in an event that happened 700 million years ago, an event during which the gaseous mix was totally different and would have induced cooling despite high levels of CO2.

At this stage the measurement of global warming is 0.03 degree Celsius per annum on trend, though in the last ten years the trend has slowed due to factors such as the sun being quiet and the oceans absorbing more energy (heat) than previously thought. 0.03 degrees C per annum represents 0.3 degrees C per decade and 3 degrees per century. 

Though compared to quantum mechanics, global warming is very simple to evaluate, measuring the increase of temperature on a global scale is very difficult. The number of observation points needs to increase, not decrease as is happening presently due to budget restrictions in the USA. 

There has been a sense that since it has not been warming as much as predicted (though the 0.03 trend is still on), the urgency has gone out of maintaining observation, especially in conservative mindset, where carbon is essential for business. 95 per cent of human activity including commerce rely on carbon — unfortunately, this carbon is beyond the "natural" cycle of carbon, by having been brought into the natural carbon equation (of the last few million years — now estimated at 30 million years), carbon that has been buried for more than 100 million years. This EXTRA carbon is changing the reactivity of the atmosphere.

We have the choice of accepting the process as something there is nothing we can do about it and live with an extra 3 degrees C by the end of this century and live with an extra 6 degree C by the end of the next one. 

But it could be worse still. The record shows that changes in temperature and CO2 though firmly in step together can also be influenced by other factors such as particles and methane.

Eventually, irrefutable is not the word I would use. But scientists have to fight a lot of ignorance of processes and fight doubt brought in deliberately to sabotage the knowledge, even if evidence show a 95 per cent conviction by scientists who are not dummies, let me say, but are made to appear being loonies by the media, conservative politicians, most business men and a lot of religious gobbledeegook.

At this stage, there is still an essential relativism to be brought into the equation, which scientists always have done by doubting themselves and their own results, experiments and observations... The degree of bracketed error in the whole process here is about 3 per cent which still lies in plus area. Global warming is happening and most likely (97 %) being induced by humans burning fossil fuels... 

This is why the IPCC is on the "conservative" estimate of prediction: a 2 degree C increase by 2100. Other models once they discount all other vagaries of the feed-back system show that there will be "surprising" sudden increases of temperatures that would plateau and then rise again... Some computer models show an increase of 6 degrees C by 2100. My own crude calculations based on personal observation and computation of the record show a 9 degree C increase by 2120.

Mind you we could be hit by a large meteorite before 2032 and new parameters would be in place, especially massive cooling. But by 2032 (according to my own calculations) or by 2047 (according to serious progressive scientific analysis), the normal behaviour of the atmosphere will "flip"... degree of certainty?... Who knows. 

But things are changing. FAST in geological terms.

On the economic front:

The IPCC and the United Nations have in place measures which on the surface could appear draconian but are quite conservative and sensible:

— reduce emissions of CO2 by 20 per cent by 2020 per annum on 2000 levels

— reduce emissions of CO2 by 50 per cent by 2050 per annum on 2000 levels

This does not mean the total shut down of carbon generated energy 

But this means the increase usage of renewable energy as well as recycling the EXTRA carbon burnt in fossil fuels by humans. This would limit the global warming rise at 2 degrees C by 2100 and with more savvy solution to the human energy supply and population growth control, the trend could slow beyond this date. 

Please note that all these figures are subject to bracketing of uncertainty and as I mentioned in earlier blogs on this site in 2005, when one say 6 degrees C— this could be 5.3 degrees C or 6.4 degrees C...

The extra dimension to this "annoying" problem of global warming is that most (if not all) computer models predict increase in extreme weather activity. 

Ross Garnaut says Australia’s climate change debate is like a “Martian beauty contest” where some flaws in the existing carbon tax are on full display but the still-hidden Coalition “direct action” policy “contestant” would certainly be far worse.

In a withering critique of the government’s alternative greenhouse policy, the former Labor government’s expert climate adviser says the government’s direct action green paper “shoots the breeze” instead of outlining a serious policy, and that the plan will quickly cost an unaffordable $4bn to $5bn a year. He advises the Senate to stick with a floating carbon price until the Coalition comes up a sensible alternative.

In a submission to a Senate committee investigating the direct action policy, before which he will give evidence Friday morning, Garnaut says “the government has placed the Senate in the situation of a judge of a Martian beauty contest”.

He says: “The Senate was introduced to some indelicate features of the first contestant (the established policies) and invited to award the prize to the second contestant (direct action) while the second was still hidden from view. In the green paper on the emissions reduction fund, the government has lifted part of the veil which has hidden the second contestant.

“We have seen some gnarled toes, and people who are expert in these things can guess at the shape of the rest of the body. The glimpse of the second contestant should make us cautious about awarding the prize to the Martian under the veil until the second contestant is in full view.”

He accuses the government of demanding the repeal of the existing policy before it has explained even the most basic aspects of its alternative.

“Rather than a green paper, what is before the Senate is a shooting of the breeze: the raising of a few of the questions that would need to be answered along the way to preparing a green paper,” Garnaut says.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/07/ross-garnaut-climate-debate-martian-beauty-contest