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2015 was the world's hottest year: This is why Australians should worry
Heatwaves are becoming longer, hotter and more frequent as a result of climate change. There is no where for us to hide, and thinking that we can simply "toughen up" or that air-conditioning will come to the rescue is folly, writes Dr Liz Hanna.
Heat records are falling like skittles - they don't last for long anymore.
2014 had been the world's hottest year since records began in 1880, but it held that title for only one year, as today 2015 was confirmed as being even hotter by a significant measure.
This is particularly bad news for the health of all Australians, even the young, fit and resilient.
Let me explain why. Global warming is accelerating, in line with increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and in 2015 this was boosted by a big el Nino event.
This is a world problem but one that is especially worrying for Australia, which is actually tracking ahead of this curve. Globally, the combined average land and ocean annual temperature for 1901-2000 was 13.9C, and the annually averaged temperature over land for the same period was 8.5C.
Compare that to Australia's average air temperature over land (1961–1990) of 21.8C. Admittedly, these time scales do not mirror each other, but the difference of 13.3C is significant and highlights how far Australia is ahead of the global average in terms of exposure to heat.
Most of us are feeling the heat. Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth - all highly populous major cities - have all experienced temperatures over 45C, and for inland regions it's closer to 50C. All around our country there are more record hot days, and record hot months. Heatwaves are becoming longer, hotter and more frequent. In short, there is no where for us to hide.
It is pure folly to think that air-conditioning is our saviour. To fully function as a society, Australians must venture outside. Commuting, shopping, tending to domestic needs, caring for others, accessing essential services, and even working involves exposure to the ambient climate. Many of these vital activities cannot be delayed or postponed.
Imagine the scenario when repeated heatwaves emerge, when walking to the bus is hazardous, and such situations linger for weeks throughout summer. Some might say we just need to toughen up. But the fact is there are physiological limits to human's capacity to remain active in the heat.
The ambient temperature for optimal human physical performance is about 11C. Temperatures in excess of that progressively degrade transfer of the additional heat generated by movement to the environment, and core temperatures rise. Fatigue is a self-protecting response to limit heat generation. Persistent exercise in high temperatures results in dangerously high core temperatures and heat stress, which can ultimately be fatal.
Yes, you can adjust to heat over time and achieving a stage of acclimatisation does provide some protection. However, this process is complex, and takes several weeks of prolonged physical activity in the heat to achieve. The process of acclimatisation itself is also risky. Furthermore, acclimatisation erodes in the absence of regular heat exposure.
Early season heatwaves are particularly dangerous in this regard. Intermittent heat exposure is therefore also hazardous, which places fly-in-fly-out workers at high risk.
Acclimatisation also dips when the body is stressed for other reasons, such as mild infections. The consequence is that every member of society is at risk of heat stress on hot days, and especially so on days of extreme heat.
In order for such risks to be managed effectively, we must be aware of them, understand them and factor these risks into our daily lives. Australians still underestimate the hazardous nature of heat to our health, as many still regard it as a problem only for the elderly, and very young. Few realise that it's not just school children but those who are fit and aged in their 20s, 30s and 40s who all appear in heat mortality statistics.
My own recently completed study examining heat exposure in the Australian workforce identified an over assessment of heat tolerance. This study recruited people who routinely work in hot environments. They are well-acclimatised and accustomed to functioning and moderating their heat exposure. Early symptoms of heat stress regularly occurred at temperatures they had previously listed as safe to keep working. This highlights a potentially dangerous lack of recognition of heat as a personal health risk.
All Australians are therefore vulnerable to heat. The young and fit are not excluded from risk of heat death, and a change of attitude towards heat is urgently required. We also need to interrupt the process of further warming before our nation is exposed to massive heat death events.
Dr Liz Hanna is the director of the Working in the Heat program at the Australian National University. Dr Hanna is also president of the Climate and Health Alliance.
Topics: health, climate-change
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Comments (526)
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Grant :
21 Jan 2016 4:37:37pm
The climate fanatics should start us off. No more jets, cars and electricity for them. And of course they should help defray some of the cost of the increased prices of goods and services that their policies would cause. Surely a tax on climate scientists pay packets to help low income people who are already struggling and don't need more of a burden
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 5:02:04pm
AND take awy their meat too, if they aren't hypocrites. They can eat vegetbles and beans and nuts and stop 33% of global carbon emissions right now today hooray climate-change scaremongers who don't eat farm animals because they care about the sky fairy.
21 Jan 2016 6:52:18pm
So do think a dose of sarcasm is a sufficient response to a serious issue? Should the climate scientists be found to be just a little bit right what will you then have to say as people's homes go under water? Learn to swim? And you think people will applaud your cleverness?
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 7:30:29pm
I love the warm summers, don't own a beach house, swim like a fish, have an IQ of 163 and know which storytellers on the Drum deserve some sarcasm to help cover their blatantly obvious political desires.
The truth is, meat eaters cause 33% of carbon emissions, so now you know the truth, all you need to decide is how much you love the sky fairy, Losimpson. More than fried chicken, or not?
21 Jan 2016 8:10:30pm
If you have an IQ of 163, can I ask you what 'sky fairy' you refer to? Because an individual as august and intellectual as you couldn't be disputing the science of climate change, even if you are using figures which are demonstrably flawed (where did the 33% of emissions from meat-eaters come from?)
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 8:42:10pm
Just one of those Amazing Stories from Western Australia to keep the masses entertained, Onieros. There's no need to dispute the science of climate change when you like the warm weather.
Bring it on! Sooner the better.
Are you disputing the demonstrably flawed figures published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation? You're not exactly Crusoe there.
I know most of you are addicted to the thrill of consuming dead animal flesh to prove to yourselves how tough you are, but there is always mixed marital arts to help you quit the habit if you want to.
21 Jan 2016 9:08:31pm
Mixed marital arts? Is that some kind of sex thing, or does it refer to fourth dan putting out the bins or black belt dishwasher loading or something along those lines?
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 2:25:01pm
Sorry. That wasn't a celeron typo. It was all my own. I never picked it until you did the required research, so thank you for your dilligent effort to find flaws in my posts, Kate. I think you should ask centrelink for a raise after all your hard work.
21 Jan 2016 10:19:11pm
First, in regards to the thing about 'warmer temperatures,' if you think an average increase of 2 degrees to the global temperature is going to be enjoyable, then I may have just found the first documented case of Homo Reptilia, because no other explanation springs to mind as to why someone would enjoy 45 degree summers.
Second, the vast majority of land used for meat production would be unable to produce vegetables, leading to a massive hole in the worlds diet. Add to that the extra energy and irrigation that would be required to support any attempt to grow food crops in these fields, and you have a much higher carbon cost. And that's not mentioning peak phosphorous or the costs of the Haber Process.
Third, the 33% figure is referring to emissions from agriculture in australia, and is somewhat disingenuous, as it is mainly formed from methane, which processes through the atmosphere much faster. Additionally, it doesn't take note of the industrial production of Ammonia through the Haber method. So, whilst close to accurate on on-the-farm emissions, the whole story wasn't fully explored, as that would take too long for anything short of a thesis.
Fourth, I am quite secure in my masculinity. I eat meat not to prove how tough I am, but because my body evolved to eat and process it. One can argue that humans should change, but we currently lack the ability to feed ourselves any other way.
I respect that you don't eat meat. Please respect the fact that I do.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 3:28:02pm
"we currently lack the ability to feed ourselves any other way."
Well I wish you the best in overcoming your disability, Onieros. Advanced persons have been doing it fine for a lot longer than I have, and I'm sure they also feel the profound fitness and health which reduces healing time, overcomes obesity, reduces the health budget, but you go right on ahead with your meat addiction, Onierios.
All that methane up in the sky, all that fat and blubber on peoples' abdomens and thighs, and all that sickness and slow recoveries, not to mention the tooth decay and bad breath from the rotting flesh stuck between your teeth. Not to mention all the mammals that you have killed in a lifetime just because you like the flavour of dead meat. Your health is fine to screw up any which way you in your liberty choose to put whatever you like in your mouth and chew on it.
My 500% tobacco taxation will be around for decades to pay for your public health budget, and I love the *warm weather, because I was born in it, and I can take it when most of the toughies I've ever worked with are getting dizzy and having to sit down for a little while. Why wouldn't I welcome a little more global warming to help me differentiate my skills from the dog-eat-dog competition? Go on and eat that fried chicken breast if it makes you feel like a man.
* warm dry heat. It takes me two months or more to properly adapt to tropical heat, but as a vegetarian, it's a lot easier than it was when I used to eat dead animals, just like everything to do with health.
22 Jan 2016 11:46:14am
You may claim a high IQ but you surely can`t spell.
You did go to school did you?
John Hogan:
22 Jan 2016 12:56:22pm
Ben, our planet has been retaining additional heat for some time as a result of higher atmospheric concentrations of compounds that intercept energy from infrared radiation. This has affected the temperature of everything in the global system - air, land and water. Numbers jump around of course but the overall trend is simple: things are heating up because the planet is retaining more heat. You can seek to influence by mentioning things such as your IQ but you have not provided any evidence that we should stop accepting basic physics and science.
21 Jan 2016 9:35:58pm
He was talking about "god" who controls everything but in the issue of climate change is missing in action the same as the action "he" is taking about the population increase from 2.5 billion at the end of WW11 to 7.3 billion. Sorry I forgot these are all "gods" children and do not have impact on pollution. It was all created by the "west" that all up has 1 billion out of the 7.3 billion
21 Jan 2016 8:31:43pm
If your IQ is so high, why can't you punctuate properly?
21 Jan 2016 8:50:48pm
"... an IQ of 163"
In the famous study by Dr Catherine Cox, that was also the average IQ of fiction writers in the sample.
"The truth is, meat eaters cause 33% of carbon emissions, so now you know the truth ..."
Ah, yes, the "truth"...
Worldwide, livestock account for ~30% of all agricultural CO2 emissions. Agricultural CO2 emissions account for 13%~16% of total CO2 emissions. In Australia it's about 9% for livestock and 15%~19% total agriculture.
Only if you calculate it as total agriculture (including land clearing) and CO2e (i.e. all gg in the equivalent CO2 units) do you get close to 33%. Unfortunately, it stays much the same (~30%) if you factor in all the agricultural changes necessary for a 100% vegan population.
So now you know the truth ... ?
21 Jan 2016 9:37:23pm
The lie is, that meat eaters cause 33% of carbon emissions.
What was this years beef was last years grass and grain.
What was last years grass and grain, was the year before atmospheric CO2.
If the vegetation is not eaten by livestock, it is devoured by either fungus, bacteria, or by white ants or the likes, and then devoured by the bacteria that lives in their guts. If it is not devoured by any of these things releasing the carbon as CO2 back into the atmosphere then it is devoured by fire, and the oxidisation process releases the carbon as CO2 back into the atmosphere.
It's a sum increase of zero.
IQ of 163? I think not Ben.
22 Jan 2016 11:09:23am
"IQ of 163? I think not Ben."
Actually I think that it was an IQ of 1 + 6 + 3.
Jerry Attrick:
22 Jan 2016 12:06:05pm
Blzbob, it's not the growth of the meat that's the problem with ruminant livestock. It's the methane produced from their rumen (forestomach) by the methanogenic bacteria that live there and help them digest their food. The methane, plus carbon dioxide, is eructated routinely (i.e. belched or burped depending on your preferred terminology). Methane has about 25 times the heat-trapping capacity of carbon dioxide. So it is a significant factor.
Non-ruminants such as chickens and rabbits, contribute much less to this problem. So while eating meat of any sort adds to the problem, eating meat from ruminants - which is, of course our main source - has a particularly large carbon footprint.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 3:53:14pm
"on-ruminants such as chickens and rabbits, contribute much less to this problem."
Thank you for teaching me something worthwhile today, Jerry. I shall lay off the 'fried chicken' jokes in future, although I still believe that Chicken is for Egg, but they don't ruminate so the sky fairy has nothing to fear from them.
Mick :
21 Jan 2016 10:57:28pm
I knew a guy with an IQ of 160 plus. Biggest idiot I have ever come across! Did time for an affair with an underage student. Leaving aside the moral issues, how stupid can you get?
just saying:
22 Jan 2016 10:57:37am
most people I have come across that have " High IQ's " Have zero common sense or practical abilities kinda useless really.
22 Jan 2016 12:00:33pm
"I knew a guy with an IQ of 160 plus."
So did I. Lovely bloke. Life-long sufferer of bi-polar disorder, hugely gifted watercolour artist, genuis at physics and mathematics and an encyclopedic knowledge of art history and classical music. He was also th emost gifted aviator I have ever seen.
He never held down a job. He was never in a long-term relationship. Lived on a diet of apple pie and coco-pops. Described himself as a "failed acloholic" (because he founf lying in gutters too uncomfortable). And died with a brain tumor at the age of forty.
IQ testing, at best, measures one particular aspect of your intelligence. If that particular aspect of your intelligence is stronger than the median, your IQ will be above 100. If it is weaker than the median, it will be below 100. So IQ testing is useful in very limited applications where a particular type of aptitude is required, but it is also useful in discovering the priorities and values of the testers and the society in which they live.
I can claim to have an IQ of anywhere between 45 and 190, because I have scored those scores (and just about every one in between) in different IQ tests while researching the effecitveness of various intelligence testing techniques. All of the tests were valid within the context of a particular aptitude, and completely useless outside of that context.
So an IQ score doesn't really tell you much about how intelligent a person is or what is their capacity for comprehension. But the fact that someone quotes their IQ score in a forum such as this does tend to suggest that they are a goose.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 3:43:13pm
"I knew a guy with an IQ of 160 plus. Biggest idiot I have ever come across! Did time for an affair with an underage student. "
So Mick, you have come to the conclusion that all intelligent people are sex maniacs? Is that what you are trying to tell us? You hate intelligent people and consider them all to be idiots, right?
Well good luck with your hypothesis. I think it's a lot of crap, but you're probably young and I'm old and you never know your luck if you live long enough.
22 Jan 2016 11:05:53am
"have an IQ of 163"
What a stupid thing to say.
First of all, people of high intelligence do not brag about their IQ scores because they are well aware of the flaws of IQ testing. So, people claiming to have hig IQ's are generally people who WISH they had a high IQ and tend to be hostile toward genuinely intelligent people.
Your own frequently expressed hostility to science, and scholarship tends to reinforce the impression that your glowing assessment of your own mental prowess is, to say the least, overblown.
should be working:
22 Jan 2016 11:08:32am
Do they? I think you will find that growing animals for consumption cause the emissions, not he meat eaters themselves. But regardless, what is the environmental damage that would be caused by having an only vegetarian diet for every person in this world, considering that meat is such an 'efficient' form of protein compared to vegetables.
Considering also that much of the world is not suitable for growing crops (due to water concerns, terrain) but is suitable for growing animals which graze on grasses (like most of Australia really), and considering that a lot of animal products are not meat (dairy products for example) but still require a living, breathing, farting animal to make.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 4:02:31pm
"an 'efficient' form of protein compared to vegetables. "
Beans, eggs, nuts, SbW. Less grammes per meal than sausages or steak, and more than enough protein to build strong and heal quick. There is no substance to your claim at all.
People who eat dead animals are just addicted to the filthy stuff. They can't help it because they are too weak to change.
22 Jan 2016 11:48:28am
Ben: From memory it is the other sky fairy you believe in, which might be all right for you to comfort yourself, and be the reason you to distrust scientists. However for rational people the possibility of man made climate change appears to be a growing concern. Have you ever thought about how a heated continent like Australia would react so far as its water resources would go, and indeed our ability to grow vegetables.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 4:46:09pm
Tom1, the sky fairy is the one that all the climate-change fanatics want us all to be afraid of. The one who gets to decide how hot the sky will be in fifty years.
I do believe that she maybe a distant cousin of Nostradamus, but she lacks consistency. She's never done anything but threaten us all with 2*C warmer Summers which have never happened since 1880 when we first worked out how to find her telephone number in the yellow pages.
22 Jan 2016 11:57:32am
Having laughed at the rubbish you spout for a while Ben, I'm reasonably sure that you missed a decimal point in your claimed IQ.
21 Jan 2016 8:23:51pm
I don't have an IQ of 163. I am just of those ignorant people that worry that the scientists have more knowledge than me and just might be right.
Intellectual superiority is not always the way forward for us lesser people. We too have our place.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 8:50:28pm
Next time, maybe you shouldn't discuss cleverness with strangers Losimpson? You know it's only going to get you in the mire.
21 Jan 2016 9:16:58pm
The dumbest dope on the planet is likely to claim his IQ to be way higher than the average man.
Purely because he would be dumb enough to imagine that others might believe him.
I have met a lot of stupid people and that is exactly how they think, and they like to fool themselves into believing that no one is smart enough to see right through them.
22 Jan 2016 2:46:16pm
And your dumb enough to believe you know how stupid people think.ha ha another hypocritical post that defeats its self
21 Jan 2016 9:24:51pm
I suspect Ben had to do the test a number of times until the managed to finally achieve that score.
His IQ doesn't even allow him to understand that eating meat has nothing to do with the problem.
He fails to have any understanding of the difference between the short term carbon cycle and the long term carbon cycle.
The beef industry relies on and takes advantage of the short term carbon cycle, but it is the long term carbon cycle that the fossil fuel industry utilises and relies upon that is causing all of our problems.
21 Jan 2016 9:48:01pm
Mate when China reduces pollution in 2030 everything will be solved. Not sure what will happen when they continue to increase pollution until then. However a new carbon tax in Australia will assist by changing global climate change as Australia has such an impact.
21 Jan 2016 10:58:13pm
Ben Nally, you forgot the decimal place in that number
22 Jan 2016 11:35:56am
"I don't have an IQ of 163"
Would you like one? All you have to do is find the right test.
When I was at uni we did a lot of experimentation with intelligence testing. It was fascinating stuff. What we were trying to achieve was reliable way of assessing the intelligence of a human being that was not culturally specific and would measure the intelligence of an Inuit as accurately as it would a native of The Bronx or a stockman from Tennant Creek.
Of course, no universal intelligence test emerged from our labours. But it was not a waste of time because we learnt heaps, and the most important thing that we learned was why intelligence testing is a waste of time. And the answer is so blindingly obvious that it is almost invisible to most of us.
We are all different. One person's intelligence is an entirely different thing to another's. And I don't just mean that they can be distinguished by a few minor differences - everybody's intelligence is ENTIRELY individual and incomparable with the intelligence of any other person. And, of course, there are also different types of intelligence. The intelligence it takes to find and spear a fish is very different to the intelligence required to drive a bus, butcher a cow or solve a Soduko puzzle.
After nearly two years of research, I concluded that I am no more intelligent, but no dumber, than anyone else. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of relative intelligence in human beings is absurd.
So, if you would like to boast of an IQ of 163, there's nothing stopping you from doing so. And look how well it has worked out for Ben.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 4:18:58pm
I wasn't boasting, I was answering a question, you moron. Why are all these mentally-challenged ones getting so afraid of plaiun truth? Are you afraid I might use my brains to break into your house tonight and steal all your daughters? Have any of you sought professional help for your paranoid delusions? They have 'improved' medication nowdays, you know. It won't kill you (this is not France).
21 Jan 2016 9:28:01pm
Simple solution
Get China to do something as it produces 50% of pollution. Sorry the left would have us believe that China is the world leader in renewables but will continue increasing emissions to 2030
22 Jan 2016 12:18:29pm
"Simple solution"
And, as with most "simple solutions", simple and wrong.
There are 1.2 billion Chinese on Earth and just over 20 million Australians. In other words, there are around 50 Chinese on Earth for every Australian.
But China does not produce anywhere near 50 times the CO2 pollution as is produced by Australia.
What you need to do is remember that countries are simply arbitrary concepts, and that we are all, in reality, citizens of the same planet. Now, perhaps you would like to explain to a Chinese rice farmer, whose carbon footprint as less that one tenth that of an Australian accountant, why HE should cut his emissions so that Australian accountants can maintain their lifestyles.
By the way, Australia emits 28 tonnes of CO2 per capita per annum. China emits 7.6 tonnes of CO2 per capita per annum. I suggest that we have some work to do before we can preach to the Chinese.
Old McDonald:
21 Jan 2016 7:14:20pm
If we prioritise getting electricity generation and transport to use clean energy sources, that's a big enough problem itself so it's a couple of decades in that before we even have to worry about meat production. We may not even have to reduce meat production at all if we take care of those other big emission areas fast enough. So the longer you guys rail against a carbon price, the more likely it is that meat production will fall under the scope of necessary measures required.
Keep squealing little piggies and see where it gets us all.
21 Jan 2016 9:54:57pm
The best way is to shut down all coal fired power stations and stop exporting coal. As solar is so much cheaper than coal to produce energy someone needs to tell the providers of power who are largely government of this "fact".
The greens only need to educate government about the economics of renewable energy and it is a no brainer.
22 Jan 2016 12:26:53pm
"The greens only need to educate government about the economics of renewable energy and it is a no brainer."
Sounds easy, doesn't it.
But you appear to have forgotten about a thing called "hegemony" and who wields it in our society.
A long time ago, it was discovered that inhaling tobacco smoke could lead to all sorts of respiratory and other diseases. But, for many years after this was discovered, tobacco corporations continued to advertise the health benefits fo their products and tobacco continued to be promoted as a healthy outdoor activity, the preferred drug of culturedm, spohisticated people, the "jet set" and so on. The scientific evidence was questioned and ridiculed by PR people wearing white coats, who were given equal or superior status with genuine scientists in the popular media.
Sound familiar?
The sad fact is that hegemony in our society is wielded by enormous monopoly corporations who have a vested interest in social behaviours that are extremely deliterious to the welfare of humanity and the health of our environment. They don't want us to act in our own best interests and will do all that they can to stop the Greens and other groups from encouraging us to do so.
22 Jan 2016 4:32:40pm
Solar is not cheaper or able to produce 24/7 365 days a year electricity supply. When the Sun doesn't shine, when there are clouds, production zero to minimal. Without subsidies solar would not be worth considering, and once all the maths are done including replacing panels in about 20-years, the cost of regular cleaning and maintenance, the cost of financing or loss of earnings on money spent, solar is nothing more than a con.
And don't try the batteries will save it diversion as it is not true.
21 Jan 2016 8:08:40pm
As I've had to point out numerous times, a cessation of meat consumption wouldn't translate into greenhouse gasses. Those who believe in climate change and bring it up are usually misinformed about the production costs and ability to produced vegetables, whilst people, such as yourself, who don't believe in the science us it as a straw man.
Climate Change is real, there are sensible steps we can take, and we'll need to take them eventually, as we're running out of coal.
21 Jan 2016 9:47:54pm
The best move any one of us could undertake is to install enough solar panels on our homes to run our air-conditioning systems, make sure our homes have adequate thermal mass, and then run our air cons all day, then turn them off as soon as the sun goes down.
This will allow us to survive the heat waves we will be subjected to, without adding to the problem.
It is the first step in the right direction.
22 Jan 2016 12:57:00pm
The problem is that what you're saying is based on the idea that we'll somehow remain within a building with air-con all day during these heatwaves. If this is going to get rid of our ability to travel and work, then what about those who don't have a choice in the matter, or better yet, those who can't afford solar OR air conditioning?
Whilst it may help some cope with the heat, and certainly improve the environmental impact of the air-conditioner, it is not a wide-ranging solution, and won't do as much as adopting new renewable tech.
the yank:
21 Jan 2016 5:07:26pm
Figures you'd make such comments.
As one who is concerned I would gladly pay more for electricity if it didn't pollute. I already drive a car that gets around 4.5 litres per 100 ks. and when electric cars come out I would look at them. As for flying I would look at cleaner ways of travel if they were available.
While you are happy to kill yourself and your family with pollution I am not. Its not the scientist but the Murdoch's and Rinehart's that should pay. The scientist only tell you what is happening, facts you obviously can't not or will not let enter your head.
Read the article without a one eyed bias you would learn something important.
21 Jan 2016 5:58:24pm
yank, "I would look at cleaner ways of travel if they were available"doesn't this sound slightly hypocritical to you? If something goes against my beliefs, I don't partake of it.
21 Jan 2016 8:13:47pm
There is a limit to what one can avoid 'partaking in' in order to remain functional in society, and car ownership is, unfortunately, one of them.
Luckily, in regards to the electric car, we're seeing some massive improvements, especially in batteries, that are making 200 mile a charge electric cars a reality. All we need now is the necessary infrastructure to support them.
And to those who say that electric cars are still bad for the environment, as the may be fueled by energy produced from coal, know this: a coal fired powerplant is a cleaner source of energy than petroleum. Simple as that.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 9:24:50pm
"a coal fired powerplant is a cleaner source of energy than petroleum. "
Good science, Onieros. Picture the panorama from a hi-rise in Beijing if Henry Ford had invented a little coal-fired power station for every Model-T he sold and we were all pumping our own daily smoke up in the sky to save walking to the bus stop ...
... oh, hang on a minute. Take out the coal, add some benzine and what have we got? The average car driver in Australia uses eight times the energy in a day as I use to power my gas/electric house for a day. That's on top of the energy they burn up in their salubrious mansions when they get home from a hard day's polluting.
22 Jan 2016 1:15:55pm
There's a big difference between small coal generators and large powerplants, with a massive amount of energy efficiency and combustion completion being the case. Now this really only counts in terms of Australia and other developed countries, but that is the example I am using. In those cases, the already active coal plant furnace is at an amazing temperature, and the coal that is put in burns more completely, leading to a higher energy yield. In this scenario, the 'same' amount of coal produces more energy than the oil does in a car engine, which burns much less efficiently. Not a great improvement, but an improvement none the less.
Second, could I find where you got those energy use figures? They may be useful.
Finally, I would like to state that I am not in favour of coal power. However, a switch from petrol to electric improves both the energy emission efficiency, as well as well as puts us in a better position to utilise renewables.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 4:09:31pm
"Second, could I find where you got those energy use figures? They may be useful."
My pleasure. I got the usage for my household from the utility bills in 2014-2015 financial year, and the average petrol consumption of Australian drivers from the ABS. There are also many websites, from which you can glean the correct ones from all the rubbish, which calculate the kWH and other variables for electicity, gas, petrol, etc.
Do you remember my discussion with From the Fortress in late 2014? I am sure the ABC still have the log if you would like to have a look over the original data.
21 Jan 2016 9:38:41pm
Coal is a cleaner source of energy than petroleum?
Well, lets do the maths. It ain't hard. Newton told us that for every action there is an equal opposite reaction. Or, put another way, converting energy from one form to another you always lose at least 50%. But even a rocket isn't 50% efficient. 25% (1/4) efficiency for any 'machine' stage is, in fact, super-super-efficient.
Number of machine stages in thermal coal -electricity generation:
1: potential energy (coal) to heat.
2: steam (heat) to mechanical energy
3: mechanical energy to electricity.
That's (1/4)^3 = 1/64 ~ 2% efficient. Now let's say we run a car off that we have;
4: electricity to chemical (stored) energy
5: chemical back to electricity
6: electricity to mechanical ~ 1/64. Net 0.04% efficient for the whole process + line losses in the grid + a myriad of other losses.
Now a petrol car;
1: chemical energy to heat
2: heat to mechanical energy net 1/16 or 6% efficient which translates to about 100 times the greenhouse emissions for an electric car in comparison with a petrol car.
There's a big difference between politically motivated opinions and physical reality.
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 12:10:31pm
That's not exactly accurate. For starters, mechanical->electrical and electrical->mechanical is a pretty efficient conversion.
Let's try to tighten up your numbers.
According to the Climate Change Authority, light vehicle emissions were ~57 Mt CO2e in 2012, ~10% of Australian total emissions, and emission intensity was ~260 grams CO2e per vehicle-kilometre. They list ~190 billion VKT, 49 megatonnes if you multiply it out, so maybe I'm misreading the graph slightly but it's in the same order of magnitude.
Let's grab a Tesla for comparison just because I don't know what a good reference electric car is and it's probably less efficient than a Leaf, the other one I know of. I'll use a Roadster, their first vehicle, which should also be less efficient.
According to the numbers I grabbed off of Wikipedia, it's got a 53 kWh battery pack and a range of 393 kilometres, so 7.4 kilometres/kWh. IPCC lists 1001 g CO2/kWh for coal, but that's a worldwide median value and we're probably below that. We'll use it anyway. Multiply it out, 7.4 kilometres/kilogram CO2, or 135 g CO2e/kilometer. Emissions intensity for non-electric light vehicles was 260 g CO2e/kilometre. Looks like electric vehicles are more CO2e-emission-efficient, even if you power them exclusively with coal.
That said, lots of other emissions from coal and petrol than just CO2, many of them not amazing; other limitations to electric cars; etc. etc.. Don't take this as advice, just some hard numbers on your terrible Fermi estimate.
Sir Robert of Lindsay:
22 Jan 2016 12:12:55pm
"Well, lets do the maths. It ain't hard. Newton told us that for every action there is an equal opposite reaction. Or, put another way, converting energy from one form to another you always lose at least 50%."
I'm not sure what your post is actually saying, but your a bit confused on what is going on here. Conservation of energy law does apply, it always does in every situation, but...
What applies in this case when you compare fuels are two basic principles. The first being the calorific value (ie how much heat energy the substance produces), and secondly the efficiency that you can convert it into the energy form that is then useful to you.
It's gets a bit more complicated then this actually, in fact a lot more complicated, but this will do the time being.
Not sure where you got your efficiencies percentages from, but I won't dispute these except to say my memory of first year uni thermal dynamics is that burning a substance was never a very efficient way to extract energy. It just has way too many areas losses can occur. Exploding it in a contained space is a much better method, but still highly inefficient by the way.
You only need to look your car's temperature gauge to tell you that. The gauges needle is actually measuring how much wasted energy is being lost to the atmosphere through the cooling system. Most of those dollars we pay at a bouser is for wasted energy through the radiator and exhaust system.
For the record petroleum has nearly double the calorific value of coal (48000 GCV compared to 25000 GCV). When you plug these numbers in efficiency equations you need to consider exactly what type of engine and what type of coal fired plant you are using, as efficiency varies enormously.
Again from memories of first year Thermal Dynamics, an internal combustion chamber is a far more efficient way of extracting energy from a substance compared to just putting it in a coking oven. You lose a lot less energy up the exhaust ports and more of the fuel is used in the process (ie. some systems won't always use every last gram of fuel).
If you want to compare the "cleanliness" you also have to consider what nasty chemicals get spewed out.
If your trying to say electric cars create more green house gases than petrol cars your ignoring the fact electricity doesn't have to be produced by a coal fired power station.
Electric cars don't need liquid cooling either to dissipate unwanted energy. They even recapture heat energy created through the braking mechanisms.
22 Jan 2016 1:05:50pm
In saying that coal is cleaner, I was referring to the specific example of the electric car. To be blunt, the reason coal is 'cleaner' in this instance, is that the size of the generator, and the heat at which it operates, creates a much cleaner and more efficient burn then is attainable in a petroleum engine, just like how a 4-8 cylinder car is more efficient in its combustion than a 2-stroke motorcycle, based on its exhaust.
Essentially, the reason coal is 'cleaner' comes down to the more advanced method of generation we have, compared to the relatively simple use of petrol in engines. Now this may change in the future, but as of now, the exhaust from a petrol engine or generator is much larger than the emissions related to the production of that much energy in a fully-functional coal power plant.
Of course, neither are as emission-efficient as, say, a natural gas power station would be, or solar thermal, or nuclear, ect.
By the way, you're math is really shaky there, and based on numerous flaws, such as the failure to account for the differing energy efficiency of different types of coal, the differing energy efficiency of straight combustion v. superheated combustion in power generation, and the differing fuel consumption of a power-plant in start-up mode to one in full production mode (which uses much less fuel to maintain, rather than raise, heat).
21 Jan 2016 7:14:10pm
Electricity generation is not the greatest output of pollution diesel fuel is followed by petrol.
Wind generation in the last month in the UK produced 0.1% of the total and this is not an isolated incident. Wind power in the winter in Europe is mostly useless.
Electric cars are dropping in sales, down 13% in the USA last year due to oil production booming on shale deposits. The USA claim they have enough oil reserves for 300 years.
The only way you can kill yourself with CO2 (not carbon) is to get it to level of 5000 PPM (from memory). Up to that point it will only make you sleepy over about 3000 PPM.
The scientists tell gullible people like you what you want to hear. According to the satellites 2015 is the 3rd hottest since 1979 NOT 1880. In 1880's wind turbines, solar generators and coal-fired electricity generation began.
Facts you cannot or will not let enter your head!
21 Jan 2016 8:17:31pm
Well, I don't know how your getting accurate satellite weather records from the 1880's but well done. Incidentally, did you know that in 1896, swedish chemist/physicist Svante Arrhenius performed his famous greenhouse experiment, where a greenhouse with a higher concentration of CO2 was shown to gain and retain heat better than one with standard air? It just goes to show how a seemingly unimportant experiment can change our understanding of the world.
22 Jan 2016 11:45:48am
Onerous: I specifically mentioned 1979 Sat. records as the IPCC and other warming wonks claim the last 10 years have been the hotttest on record.
2015 despite a strong el nino is NOT the hottest year on record. The 1880-> data is USA only and certainly NOT a global temperature, we did not have such a thing in 1880.
Still if it keeps you worrying about a non-event then the IPCC has done its job. Have a google at 'temp since 1880 on a thermometer' it may shock even you. It reminds me of global ice charts.
Why are we spending money on this piece of shoddy, data manipulation stupidity?
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 8:26:30pm
"Electricity generation is not the greatest output of pollution diesel fuel is followed by petrol."
It's a wonderful afternoon treat to read some truth on this website. Do they still have nine-billion bicycles in Beijing or are they too rich to lower themselves to pedal power now?
21 Jan 2016 8:32:39pm
The UK only produces 7% of its power from renewable sources, of which wind is only one. In addition, offshore windfarms have been producing record levels of energy in the past few months. Your figure is, as I have found, based on the comparison of complete energy consumption (including industry & furnaces) across one year compared to the one-month output of a single wind farm array. Hence, it is fallacious at best, and outright lying at worst.
21 Jan 2016 11:43:11pm
Record levels against what?? This summer is not hotter than any other..
22 Jan 2016 1:27:41pm
Record levels against previous data. Whilst we have not had a record for maximum heat be broken (yet), what has occurred is that the average temperature over the period has increase, as can be seen in the number of days we've been having in the high thirties.
But tell me, if you're so sure, where the data is to support your claim.
21 Jan 2016 9:23:02pm
Just in from the Guardian. Denmark has hit a record 42% of its electricity generated from wind.
And Scotland generates 97% of its household energy from wind.
So I presume the rest of your stats are also made up. lol.
21 Jan 2016 10:04:41pm
Check out Denmark for windpower. 42%!!
22 Jan 2016 1:36:51pm
Rocks in head and other singers regarding Denmark. Go read about the problems Denmark faces with its wind solution. A list of the main bits:
1. undersupply in peak periods
2. oversupply in low demand periods
3. unbalanced grid
4. cost of attachment to the grid
5. cost of maintening gas turbines and gen maint.
1 & 2 means buying at high cost during peak and selling, giving away or paying other countries to take excess during low periods.
It's a bloody disaster unless you read government BS about it.
22 Jan 2016 10:47:43am
ardy: "In 1880's wind turbines, solar generators and coal-fired electricity generation began."
The 19th century. Really?
22 Jan 2016 12:10:07pm
Yup! Chubby: Check it out for yourself, preferably prior to posting.
All three happened in the 1880's and this is yours and other warmists solution to 21 century energy needs. It would be laughable but there is nothing to laugh at in this madness.
Now the alarmist argument is 'they have improved since 1880's' so what! it is still nothing compared to nuclear, where we should be going. A counter is still coal generation has also improved but you don't want to hear that story.
Maybe the best fire lighter is two sticks rubbed together furiously?
22 Jan 2016 1:56:28pm
ardy: I did. The solar panel was invented in 1954. A 5 second Google second provided me with more factual information than anything you've ever posted on this online forum.
It also revealed that the first alternating current power station was opened by General Electric in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania in 1902. Mind you that those entries were from Wikipedia so they can only be taken with a grain of salt.
Technically you're right about the wind turbine which was invented in 1888. Of course it would still help the rest of us if you actually put some thought in your posts and didn't throw always stones while standing in your glasshouse.
You also made the insinuation that I'm a warmist, whatever that is. Does that mean I prefer to be warm as opposed to cold? I guess the majority of us are warmists then.
Oh please tell me more stories Mr Ardy. Don't stop.
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 12:13:55pm
The satellites infer lower trophosphere temperature from infrared emissions, rather than directly measuring surface temperatures from thermometers. And they've had a history of needing large corrections - not surprisingly, because it's damned hard to infer temperature like that. And they can't include the poles, the fastest-warming parts of the planet, because of orbital limitations. And they don't match radiosonde measurements very well if you try and do a comparison (which is hard, sonde measurements aren't as well distributed), which suggests that there might be something going wrong with the satellites.
I know which value I think is more meaningful. Hint: it's the surface temperature record. Any one of the three.
22 Jan 2016 3:00:48pm
If you mean that after Karlizing, krigging, infilling, homogenizing, pasteurizing and baptizing that NOAA/GISS T changes are somehow a better guide then it is a risible proposition.
As for the North and South Pole T measures by GISS can you name the stations involved. Perhaps you might care to join them; you will be mighty lonesome without even the Emperor penguins in sight as you set up a sole station.
More of your fairy stories are found in your belief that surface temperatures use thermometers exclusively.
21 Jan 2016 7:50:06pm
its clearly time to get the nuclear options on the table and running so we can drive our economy with clean efficient and endless electricity to power the air-con's we will need. The notion that we can beat this with windmills and steampunk wave generating power systems is a folly. The sooner we accept nuclear power as the natural evolution to deliver base load the quicker we can kick start manufacturing again and have the cheapest power on the planet. We must invest into young australian engineers to build us the power generation required for a hot 21st century. French Island in victoria is the perfect location for a large nuclear power station to power victoria and tasmania. We need vision and plans not complaining and moaning about a changing world.
21 Jan 2016 9:00:03pm
The problem with Nuclear power is that a) the fuel is difficult to obtain and refine, making it more expensive per unit and meaning subsidies are needed for the first ten or so years. b) the waste is an incurable problem, as there is no safe disposal method as of yet, nor a way to re-process and recycle. c) When it fails, the results are disastrous. d) Nuclear plants are still, for the most part, run off obsolete hardware and software, many of it decades old. No work has been done to remedy this, despite the risk it poses to safety.
Also, the assertion that nuclear power is endless is fallacious.
As for power generation, there are two major options. Option one is a gestalt power system with small on-site solar at each house, bolstered by off-shore wind (wave/tidal power is a crock, you're right about that). This system would be stronger on the whole, and speaking from experience, you'd be surprised that the biggest issue with solar isn't generating power, it's storing it.
The second option is in methods such as geo-thermal or solar-thermal, both of which, whilst more plants would be required, would be able to produce similar levels of power to coal.
TL:DR, nuclear power isn't a silver bullet, and renewables have at least some part to play in electricity generation.
Sir Robert of Lindsay:
22 Jan 2016 12:19:18pm
"its clearly time to get the nuclear options on the table and running so we can drive our economy with clean efficient and endless electricity to power the air-con's we will need."
I'm no fan of nukes, not by a long way.
But it isn't us greenies that will kill off your dream, mick.
These plants still need massive amounts of water to operate. That means a coastal or river setting.
As most of the prime waterfronts are in LNP electorates, what sitting LNP will have the guts to put their hand up for the first plant?
22 Jan 2016 1:49:22pm
Sir Robert of la la land: Go read about new generation nuclear plants. Just look up Barry Brooks who sings from the same hymn book you do. It is just that he has a better technology solution than you.
Technology must always offer more for less or it won't fly. - - - Unless you have hundreds of billions of tax payers money to make lousy technology acceptable.
Solar and Wind offer nothing for the future compared to Nuclear.
22 Jan 2016 2:28:38pm
No but you greenies put words in others mouths to try to win or lie or whatever you call that style..as you did yesterday
Sir Robert of Lindsay:
22 Jan 2016 3:50:19pm
oh, you mean calling you out when you said the science was stopped on climate change, 10 minutes before the results of yet more climate science came out?
22 Jan 2016 12:50:06pm
Message its clearly time to get the nuclear options on the table and running so we can drive our economy with clean efficient and endless electricity to power the air-con's we will need. "
Nuclear power is getting prohibitively expensive.
We should be validating our extensive stocks of geothermal energy before we even consider nuclear, and then nuclear would run second to solar power with storage.
22 Jan 2016 12:01:07pm
Why not give up flying yank? Or is that too inconvienient for you.so your all for reductions as long as you dont lose any luxuries.more progressive ideals
22 Jan 2016 4:10:14pm
Why give up flying?
A modern jet consumes about 3l of fuel per passenger (well, per seat, actually) per 100km while flying around 8-900km/h. Some a bit less (down to below 2l), some a bit more (up to 3.5l), but the 3l/p/100km is a rather good ballpark figure. Jet fuel is very close to diesel.
I have a medium sized diesel car which on a freeway gulps down about 4.2l per 100km @ 110km/h.
So if I have to go from Sydney to Melbourne, roughly 900km, flying would save about 11 litres of fuel and about 7 hours of travelling.
Of course that is a bit dodgy, because:
1. It is only valid if I drive alone
2. The 3l/p/100k figure is only true while cruising, taxi, take-off and climb is a lot more
3. Jets inject their exhaust into the atmosphere at 10km high, which is a lot worse than the same emission on the surface
On the other hand, my diesel car is pretty fuel efficient and modern, a petrol lemon emits more.
Also, I quoted freeway consumption; in a city with start-stop traffic it is much more, even with a modern, efficient car.
In addition, I don't know about yours, but my car definitely would have a really hard time crossing the ocean.
So, actually, flying on modern jets is not significantly more polluting (if at all) than driving around in your car.
22 Jan 2016 2:34:59pm
You can be Green at a cost right now.
Electric cars available are; Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Holden Volt, Telsla S, Mitsubishi I-MiEV.
Just remember when you plug one in to recharge you are probably sucking juice from a coal or oil fired power station. So not as green as you think until you recharge from a renewable energy source.
...and then you have battery pack disposal a few years down the track... Lots of heavy metals to either recycle or dump...
21 Jan 2016 5:08:21pm
"Surely a tax on climate scientists pay packets to help low income people who are already struggling and don't need more of a burden"
It makes more sense to tax the source of the problem. Oh Wait! We had that but Tony and Joe binned it with some help from Clive!
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 6:18:11pm
It makes more sense to tax someone who has money.
21 Jan 2016 8:24:04pm
"It makes more sense to tax someone who has money."
Do you think the coal mining companies haven't got any?
The nose:
21 Jan 2016 7:11:01pm
Tony Abbott and Andrew Bolt say climate change is crap, should I believe them or the scientist?
Waterloo Sunsettttt:
21 Jan 2016 8:16:31pm
I am not an admirer of either of those individuals, however, you haven't made it clear if you believe that it is getting warmer because of human activity.
You see the thing about temperature is that it is measurable - so its either hot or cold, or in between.
The fact that it is anthropogenic is suspected and indeed reinforced by lots of statistics and data that show a coincidence (almost contemporaneousness), however, it is not an absolute certainty.
What we should be doing though is helping Eurasia, China and SE Asia, come to terms with cutting pollution. Until that happens, if Humans are the cause, there will be no respite.
I was reading today that the weight of plastic in the oceans, is greater than the weight of all the fish....A frighting statistics: and one that can only be ameliorated with a population decline.
Or as Stephen Hawkins said, "we should take off to other plants". To pollute them too. no doubt.
21 Jan 2016 10:04:30pm
Yes, take off to other 'plants', that will help.
22 Jan 2016 12:25:46pm
Ah a grammar spelling attack to attack an opinion.only the uni educated should comment.bugger the uneducated who dont have to use massive words to make a point.carpenters firemen labouers etc should not be allowed to comment as there betters are the only ones who knows what happens out in the world
22 Jan 2016 3:06:39pm
mike2: He might be uni educated (you say that like it's a bad thing, are your Liberal hero's not uni educated? i.e. Mr Rhodes Scholarship) but you may have to admit that was about a funny response as you'll ever see for an error like that.
21 Jan 2016 8:34:50pm
The scientist. Because on this issue, the climatologist/climate change scholar is backed up by 96% of his field, whereas Tony and Andy are backed up by 4%. At best.
21 Jan 2016 10:24:38pm
Don't believe anyone - do your own research.
Dr Roy Spencer is a good place to start. He resigned from his post as one of NASA's top meteorologists after he saw the data and models being manipulated to fit the pre-determined outcome.
The UN decided that the earth was warming and everyone else fell into line. The scientists quickly put their hands out seeking funding whilst pitching 'we can prove that man is the cause one way or another just give us the money and we'll find a way to make it work' - and the Govt's gave them the money.
Try and get a research grant with the aim to disprove man-made global warming and you won't get a penny - it's one-way funding with zero credible debate. Climate scientists will not debate the top sceptics, why is that? Why aren't the media facilitating these debates?
I believe it's crap as the science cannot prove that man is the cause - scientists cannot measure or identify where the increased carbon dioxide comes from, same for the temperature. Increased populations in cities is causing the temperatures to rise at the weather stations. So, if f they can't measure it why are they stating (with such conviction) that man is the cause/problem?
Antartica ice is expanding yet we keep hearing that 'the ice caps are melting. Carbon dioxide is good for the environment and for us - plants love it. Don't believe anyone that tells you otherwise.
When they can prove it you can review their evidence and then decide but right now they have nothing but smoke and mirrors.
22 Jan 2016 11:52:46am
Jack paid denial scientists like Dr Roy Spencer are the worst place to start, Spencer has been employed by Heartland since 2005, and is a director of another denial lobby group, the George C. Marshall Institute. Soencer has also been an advocate of Intelligent Design, in 2005 he argued it should be mandatory in schools
The Spencer & Braswell paper published in Remote Sensing July 2011 was reviewed by climate scientists who reported the following:
"Errors identified by climate scientists "...range from the trivial (using the wrong units for the radiative flux anomaly), to the serious (treating clouds as the cause of climate change, rather than resulting from day-to-day weather; comparing a 10 year observational period with a 100 year model period and not allowing for the spread in model outputs)."
22 Jan 2016 12:23:03pm
"paid denial scientists" really do all those others work for free,. Provide the evidence of your puerile claim.. please not some Greenpeace smear.
Have you ever wondered or asked your self why every sceptic scientist is somehow paid to push a line but you think the others are what... pure in their intent... no political motives... have no vested interest... great this is how far we are advances as humans, must feel good to know you have blindly accepted the PR... sleep well
22 Jan 2016 1:59:53pm
Heartland received $676,500 (unadjusted for inflation) from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2006 and also gets funding from Koch Industries..
Heartland pays Plimer and Bob Carter a monthly retainer of US $1550, e Fred Singer gets $5,000
Ref : Desmogblog - "Heartland insider exposes institutes budget and strategy"
22 Jan 2016 4:10:24pm
Pretty paltry sums if that is your case.
Closer to home,
Dr Daniel Michael Alongi, 59, is accused of taking over half a million dollars in federal funds over the last seven years. The carbon sequestration, mangrove, reef, eco-expert has admitted he made false invoices to claim federal funds.
We are talking just one guy in QLD, Oz here!
22 Jan 2016 4:51:45pm
So you think Desmogblog is not smearing here...oh please give me a break. No Greenpeace connection in any way at all.... yes I have looked at it. Tell me its not hate filled bile.
Now tell us the total funding and the sources of the funding for those thousands of climate scientist, lets do a com[parison shall we.
Tell me which one pays more...
22 Jan 2016 1:39:40pm
Antarctic ice cover expanding is actually a result of the warming. Essentially, most of the Antarctic landmass is covered by a thick layer of ice. Now as the temperatures increase, this ice is thinning and spreading out, slowly at first, but with increasing speed.
Secondly, we have adequate proof for a 95% confidence model that states that human industry, CO2 in the atmosphere, and global average temperatures are inextricably linked. We cannot 'prove' it, however, as we don't have a planet on which to test the hypothesis on (don't suggest we use this one). This is enough evidence that the precautionary principle is brought into action, and thus becomes part of the dialogue.
Roy Spencer has no credibility as a source, as even a quick glance at his biography and memberships shows that he:
a) believes in intelligent design
b) signed 'An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming'
c) has a very shaky academic career in terms of peer-reviewed papers, with numerous flaws including refuting 14 models, whilst only creating 6 models using his alternative calculations.
Finally, you can get a great deal of funding, just not from the university or government, as many groups exist to specifically facilitate your side of the debate. As for the top sceptics, many of them refuse to debate in person, are not scientists in the correct field, or will simply refute that the measurements and facts are accurate, holding to their model and not discussing its flaws.
22 Jan 2016 2:45:07pm
"scientists cannot measure or identify where the increased carbon dioxide comes from,"
They can Jack, Anthropomorphic CO2 has a different Carbon isotope signature than naturally occurring CO2.
The expansion of Antarctic sea ice is due to meltwater, because it is freshwater it raises the freezing point of sea water..
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 12:20:00pm
It's not correlational. We have extremely good reasons to believe that increasing CO2 (or other greenhouse gases) will make the planet warmer; theoretical reasons that were worked out by Svante Arrhenius in the 19th century, practical evidence from measuring IR output from the sky (it's much higher than total solar insolation), practical evidence from the very easy calculation that shows the planet is ~33c warmer than it would be were it a blackbody without an atmosphere, implying the existence of a greenhouse effect, the calculated magnitudes lining up quite well with measured temperature, etc. etc. It's very much not just because CO2 is going up while temperatures were going up. And keep in mind this all started well before that was obvious!
Roy Spencer is also a creationist. Arrhenius published some time before the UN existed, so I rather doubt his speculation about IR absorption was driven by them. And, of course, it's utterly impossible to get rich doing basic research on government grants.
If you don't think CO2 emissions from humanity are increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere, where do you think it's going? Keep in mind that the linear trend in atmospheric CO2 is ~half the year-on-year emissions of humanity, because the remaining half tends to get sucked up by the ocean.
22 Jan 2016 12:20:04pm
The real climate scientists should be listened to but i I have never ever heard of any scientist on any topic before say we should stop questioning .eg ask a scientist a year ago how many planets? Today we found another maybe.see no science should ever be deemed perfect.questions are answered with hate.just look on this site.just yesterday people put words in my mouth I did not say to look like they won..whats that?
22 Jan 2016 3:10:05pm
mike2: Have you considering using punctuation in your posts? Seriously if you're using a standard keyboard it's like just above the spacebar to the right.
21 Jan 2016 7:19:32pm
and how effective was the carbon tax ?
it raised huge amounts of money from people,and the renewable energy sector loved all this 'free' money being given to them.
but it didnt do anything for the climate.
ever worse, as people cut back on production (either since they couldnt afford it, or they wanted to cut back, or went to alternate supplies), the incoming money crashed, but the outgoing money stayed the same.
so now we have the renewable energy sector still being awash with free money, the customers are being clobbered with the carbon tax, and the difference is being paid off out of general revenue.
the carbon tax should have focussed on helping the climate, and not being fixed to give 50% of the original income back to people
Old Red:
22 Jan 2016 10:41:28am
Flat out wrong on each point mate, try looking for the stats on this because they are out there.
It substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions for the entire time it was in place by putting a price on more carbon dioxide generation intensive products and services - since it's removal the rate of greenhouse gas emissions has returned to the original levels.
You can argue that money shouldn't have been given back as compensation to those worse off but that would have caused more problems than it solved in the end. By doing it the way it was done it meant that those worse off would be slightly better off than they'd been to start with if they changed their behaviour and everyone else would be not much worse off if they again restricted carbon dioxide generating activities.
Finally we did not see an appreciable dip in economic activity - in fact that's dropped off far more after the removal of the carbon tax than before.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 7:32:49pm
It makes more sense to tax someone who has money.
21 Jan 2016 10:00:46pm
I agree Ben, It makes more sense to tax those who have the money.
That is why I am against a rise in the GST and would prefer that higher incomes be subjected to higher taxes and even the introduction of an assets tax.
However when it comes to the release of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, there should be no tax, but instead a fine for every ton emitted.
Waterloo Sunsettttt:
21 Jan 2016 10:12:35pm
Help the job creators then the jobs can be taxed.
Keep looking at them as if they are 'rich as Croesus', and they will die away, along with their jobs and tax revenue.
22 Jan 2016 12:10:59pm
And when we collect money we can wipe the air clean with it? Money money money is all climaters seem to want.i believe in climate change but its hard cotre supporters are proven liars..death threats etc.liars hide the truth.we need real scientists without pre made up minds with bank accounts open and waiting
21 Jan 2016 5:16:22pm
I see a lot of gesturing from the OP but no facts. Would the good doctor care to trot out the facts about numbers of deaths attributable to hot weather versus cold? I know the answer, but the good doctor appears to evade such facts. That's the problem when the scientific narrative is enslaved to fat government funding.
21 Jan 2016 5:56:56pm
The doctor is warning us about the consequences of a change in our circumstances.
The global scale threat is not heat prostration but the impact on food production and fresh water supplies as global population increases.
21 Jan 2016 6:04:49pm
Bull, I have to assume that you're implying that the number of deaths from cold weather is liable to increase in the same manner as deaths from hot weather.
Could you supply us with these secret facts that the good doctor is apparently loathe to provide?
21 Jan 2016 7:27:29pm
As you claim to 'know the facts', how about YOU tell us how many additional deaths occurred as a result of the 2003 European heatwave? (Hint, the official figure is well in excess of 40,000). Then tell us about the Russian disaster a couple of years later (adding in the excess mortality - I think they call it 'harvesting' or some similar term - from respiratory stress from the smoke from the massive bushfires that went along with it - similar to the smoke health disaster that has happened this year all through Indonesia and Malaysia from the man-made fires there.)
We are LOUSY at dealing with extreme heat in our preventative environmental health space. You better pray that the 2003 Euro heatwave doesn't become the world-wide norm - because that's exactly what we are on track for.
Maybe it will take the death from heat-stroke of one of your favourite tennis players of Football heroes because they have no adequate safe-work OHS limits on the temperatures they are required to play in for your amusement. Just what WILL it take for you and others like you to take the blinkers off?
21 Jan 2016 9:13:43pm
That's a ridiculous analogy.
You can't pick a heat wave as an extreme to demonstrate that point. IPCC themselves suggest that it is unreliable (and has bias to the negative) that extreme weather events are not occuring as a result of higher temperatures. It is (sadly) the largest misnomer that has been given significant credence.
To add to this, you fallacious analogy aside, using history as a guide it is well understood that flora, fauna and human life thrived and prospered much more with average higher temperatures.
I'm standing here saying that the earth is warming and humans are contributing some. But as a moderate (Id like to think, more mainstream) we are doing no service to ourselves by embellishing, building narratives on a false premise or outright lying to people to achieve our aims.
Tell the truth, don't lie and learn the truth. Truth wins out. We have the weight of evidence on our side. But by overplaying your hand to extreme (which can be disproven so easily) is playin into their hands.
It is why extreme left is harmful to their own cause.
22 Jan 2016 11:27:27am
"...It is why extreme left is harmful to their own cause."
A reasonable conclusion, but the principle applies equally to any extreme view - so-called left AND so-called right.
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 12:22:31pm
How do you think the planet can get warmer without causing more heatwaves? The hurricane link, tornado link, flood link, storm link, drought link etc. are all rather uncertain, but more heatwaves as a result of getting warmer is a pretty easy one.
22 Jan 2016 12:34:56pm
Well why dont the climate change bank account holders spend money on say putting out china and indias underground coal fires?automatic equivilabt of taking all cars off americas roads.not trendy enough? Instant action but no the money is for talkfests
21 Jan 2016 10:11:03pm
Of course what Bulldust is ignoring and avoiding to acknowledge is that the recent cold snaps that have occurred in Europe, Russia, Canada and the USA, were all a direct result of the increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
He is suggesting that CO2 only causes a warmer atmosphere, but fails to recognise the fact that a warmer atmosphere is a more dynamic atmosphere.
The cold snaps that killed so many people in Russia and Europe are the other side of the CO2 coin.
One only has to understand how the atmosphere works to understand that.
22 Jan 2016 11:19:55am
LOL now global warming causes global cooling (selectively) as well. You heard it here folks. Best science money can buy! Step right up! Next we will demonstrate that up is down and black is white! Never mind that unfunded sceptic sideshow... they know nothing.
Thanks Blzbob - hard to believe you aren't a Moby for sceptics with comments like that :D
PS> Given that the IPCC can't even model cloud behaviour I don't hold high hopes for them understanding how the atmosphere works. Tricky stuff water...
22 Jan 2016 12:26:43pm
That is funny, but the inference is you understand how the 'atmosphere works" maybe you could explain it to us then.
Or consider this, Global warming became Climate change, due to all that cold you refer.
Another question, what do think kills more people heat or cold?
22 Jan 2016 2:31:50pm
"A polar vortex is a system of upper-level winds that circle around one of the poles. Such circumpolar wind systems exist most of the time at both the North and South Poles, but they can change in strength depending on season and also special atmospheric conditions. They surround and help to define the coldest regions on earth, and in popular accounts the term polar vortex is often applied to the cold polar air mass itself. In the northern hemisphere, the arctic polar vortex interacts extensively with the polar jet stream and may affect weather patterns at mid-latitudes."
Ref - Cornell University, "What is a polar vortex?"
22 Jan 2016 4:54:06pm
yeah great explanation .. di you notice that study was needed after the huge freeze despite the predictions to the opposite and still you faithfully follow
22 Jan 2016 2:41:39pm
And you fully understand how it works eh? Yay we can close down all research now because you know and the science is in.so how do we fix it? I am amazed at both the for and against teams blind obediance to there respective church
21 Jan 2016 5:21:41pm
Surely a tax on climate scientists pay packets..'
I didn't realise that scientists' wages were tax free. No wonder people like you criticise them. Thanks for the info.
21 Jan 2016 9:01:24pm
They aren't. Not even if you work for the Government, or an NGO. The only tax-free aspects are scholarships such as the APA, and certain research grants, neither of which are particularly large sums in the grand scheme of things.
frank of malvern:
21 Jan 2016 5:22:02pm
Exactly right Grant .
All ok for the climate doomsayers to fly here there and everywhere usually at the sharp end of the plane if not private jet, get ferried around in petrol guzzling limos,stay in 5 star air-conditioned hotels, eat at Michelin rated restaurants but the rest of us peasants are expected to stay at home, ride a bike when we do go out, keep warm under a blanket and eat vegan
Look at the lifestyles of the likes of Kevin Rudd, Al Gore, Prince Charles, Bono, Tim Flannery. Cate Blanchet and Ban Ki - Moon just to name but a few, yet they have the gall to get up and lecture to us.
21 Jan 2016 6:03:55pm
This is called an ad hominem fallacy. The people you list may lead extravagant life-styles. It might even be fair to call them hypocrites. Sure.
But that does not mean that AGW is not a scientifically robust hypothesis with an immense body of observational data supporting it. Nor does it mean that continued warming does not pose a serious large scale threat to billions of people.
The validity of a scientific hypothesis is logically completely unconnected to the character of the people who advocate it.
21 Jan 2016 9:08:33pm
Besides which, the nature of the individual, and their role in the world, does play a big factor. For instance, Tim Flannery was at an IPCC conference, which was hosted in a 4 or 5-star hotel. He needed to be at that conference to present his research, as well as liaise with others to share ideas, data, and keep up-to-date in recent developments. Kevin Rudd was a head of state, Ban-ki Moon is the President of the UN, and the others are required to travel constantly for the nature of their work. They don't always have a choice in the matter.
What you practice is a form of ad-hominem based around jealousy. You feel like they aren't being required to undergo hardships that you feel will be imposed on you. And I sympathise, but by hand-picking world leaders and major celebrities, you are picking and choosing. It is the role of the advocate to be visible and vocal, and that can't be done without travel and interaction.
As for hotels, 4-5 stars are easier to book en masse for self-contained functions, and a conference can't tell a hotel what to do.
22 Jan 2016 3:17:03pm
Completely agree that the people involved and their lifestyle proclivities have little to do with the science issue.
You are suggesting a robust hypothesis and clear evidence for AGW. If that is the case then please:
a) clearly state the clear, falsifiable, quantified hypothesis of AGW
b) the clear supporting experimental evidence.
21 Jan 2016 6:44:16pm
Yes Frank it does appear that hypocrisy runs deep here. Unfortunately forums like this seem to be little better than the plaything of people who want to score political points. It is easy to live more simply and eat less meat etc (and I do), but why are people going to be bothered when those who have a voice don't seem to make any meaningful change to their lifestyle. How can you preach about massive sea level rises and then buy waterfront property??
Old McDonald:
21 Jan 2016 7:22:29pm
That's exactly why we need a price on carbon Frank, to make the jetsetters pay for their emissions, thereby funding more clean renewable energy production elsewhere in the country.
22 Jan 2016 12:49:59pm
And to keep the poor well away from the frequent fliers lounge.only the rich deserve travel etc eh?
21 Jan 2016 10:18:14pm
One can only pray that those who contribute the most to the climate problem will be the first to meet their demise as the result of it.
In which case those who refuse to believe that there is a problem will be the first to go, no matter how little an amount of meat they chose to consume.
22 Jan 2016 12:30:17pm
Exactly who would that be, how about you stop using all the products born from fossil fuels then you hypocrite... I would ask how that goes for you but you would not be able to use the computer so stop killing pole and your children and your grandchildren right now!!
spacey 101:
21 Jan 2016 5:23:10pm
That's a bit like saying if you want to be a Christian you HAVE to become a monk or a nun. Isn't it?
My family has reduced our carbon footprint (and our bills) by about 75% in the last 3 years.
It hasn't cost a fortune to do so.
We still live a modern, 1st world, comfortable life.
21 Jan 2016 6:01:57pm
That is a bit like a gambler talking about winning. Often they spend three times (or more) to "win". The outlay in many cases to save energy has a very long pay back period. An expense many cannot afford.
21 Jan 2016 6:51:55pm
I am sorry to hear of your loss Spacey. Grandparents?
spacey 101:
21 Jan 2016 7:23:20pm
Very funny.
Nope just common sense using the technology that already exists.
21 Jan 2016 7:20:48pm
"That's a bit like saying if you want to be a Christian you HAVE to become a monk or a nun. Isn't it?"
You need to be a priest if you want to preach.
"My family has reduced our carbon footprint (and our bills) by about 75% in the last 3 years."
That might be true. But it is far more likely that:
(a) you're living a rural lifestyle which isn't sustainable for mainstream society;
(b) you're mistaken and you pollute more than you think; or
(c) your ability to reduce your footprint is facilitated by the pollution of others.
21 Jan 2016 9:12:52pm
Or they've
a) removed unnecessary energy expenditure (aircon, solar hot water, removal of electric heating elements, dishwashers, etc)
b) added new tech (energy efficient alternatives when replacing appliances, etc)
c) decreased the amount of time they drive (public transport, carpooling, etc.)
Maybe what they do isn't attainable for everyone yet, but tech is getting better all the time, and soon, governments will start mandating solar on new homes. Just give it time.
should be working:
22 Jan 2016 12:05:47pm
moving to a rural lifestyle is a waste of resources in itself. This is what we have done in my household:
- Grow a few herbs and veges that we use all the time.
- Ride a bike to work ~3 times a week and catch public transport on other days, car gets used on the weekend, but we have a small efficient car.
- Don't replace things, repair and keep items going as long as possible. (learn to sew, and do a few repairs yourself!)
- Keep plastic containers, cans, plastic bags etc.. and re-purpose them, they don't take much space and they are always handy if you are creative.
- Use sensible heating/cooling, close windows during the day and open at night helps to keep the house cool and the opposite keeps the house warm.
- Eat fresh food instead of packet food, and cook!
- reuse waste water where practical and safe for watering the lawn and garden.
In a household of two people we end up with one small garbage bag of rubbish a week and a quarter full wheely bin for recycling every month. Plus our utilities are about 1/3 the cost of most people we know, and yes, I live in a city area.
It's not really that hard and we still have all mod cons, air con, two cars, internet and lots of devices. You just have to be creative and the reality is that saving money and saving resources go hand in hand, which is partly the reason we do all of it.
21 Jan 2016 10:26:32pm
My carbon footprint is way lower than average and always has been, so luckily I have no reason to reduce mine until everyone else reduces theirs to my level.
And of course anyone with a brain knows that it does not rely in any way on the amount of meat I choose to consume.
So my energy consumption will remain the same.
What I will change though over time is the sources that much of that energy is derived from.
22 Jan 2016 12:57:28pm
So only you dont have to reduce as others do worse.ha ha ha courage of conviction in action.
22 Jan 2016 12:54:21pm
So when are you reducing the other twenty five? Why do you need a 1st world life.your twenty five is still lots lots and lots more than most of the seven billion. So you have an awful long way to go before you can preach like a puratin
22 Jan 2016 12:54:22pm
So when are you reducing the other twenty five? Why do you need a 1st world life.your twenty five is still lots lots and lots more than most of the seven billion. So you have an awful long way to go before you can preach like a puratin
Sea Monster:
21 Jan 2016 5:50:06pm
Carbon Tax. Problem solved. Happy to pay one.
21 Jan 2016 10:28:31pm
Same here.
22 Jan 2016 12:58:15pm
same here
22 Jan 2016 3:41:15pm
Count me in.
Sea Monster:
21 Jan 2016 5:50:20pm
Carbon Tax. Problem solved. Happy to pay one.
Sea Monster:
21 Jan 2016 5:50:37pm
Carbon Tax. Problem solved. Happy to pay one.
21 Jan 2016 6:55:05pm
Have you given back your compensation for the last carbon tax yet Sea?
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 12:26:42pm
What's the problem with it being revenue-neutral?
The point of a carbon tax isn't to raise money, the point is to make products that required significant emissions to create more expensive without affecting the price of products that didn't require significant emissions, so it makes more economic sense to get low-emissions stuff.
Whether or not the money comes back doesn't prevent it making coal power more expensive, for example.
David :
21 Jan 2016 7:15:57pm
Either a bad stutter, or the moderator hasn't read the PD, your welcome to pay, leave me out thanks. Do you deny the Earth goes through cycles of warm and cool periods? If not, you are the climate change denier, I believe in climate change and adaption, stop fuelling inflation and bank balances of the likes of Al Gore and invest in adaption.
Chris O'Neill:
21 Jan 2016 9:39:11pm
"Do you deny the Earth goes through cycles of warm and cool periods?"
Why have there been no significant cooling periods for the past 60 years?
22 Jan 2016 1:01:21pm
Because if it does not fit in to the science thats in we will look then at 70 then 100then1000 untill it fits the science that is in
Prime Lemur:
21 Jan 2016 6:04:26pm
Grant, I agree, there are some rather senseless positions out there. Tired, tedious arguments abound. Climate Change is nothing if not a political game now.
But I'd like to say: It is not, and never has been about radical change, switching off coal "tomorrow", banning commercial air transport or taxing petroleum out of existence. These are the arguments of politicians ... on both sides, and the political warriors among us flock to our respective sides.
If you listen to those who aren't seeking office or personal benefit, the story is simple ... start to change early, slowly and incrementally. But with these interminable Mexican standoffs, where political ideologies take up polar and polemic positions, we're losing our freedom of action. The opportunities to spread the changes required over decades, to ease the burden and protect our lifestyle, are now diminishing. Soon, within the next two decades anyway, the only choices left will be a) make urgent, expensive and radical changes to our economy, or b) suffer the consequences, of which we're reasonably certain of some, uncertain of others. It's actually the ones science are uncertain about that worry me. Some may be beneficial, some benign ... and some terrifying. Nevertheless, uncertain.
Climate systems are chaotic, sensitive to initial conditions, conditions which our current technology is unable to sample at sufficiently fine precision. This is why weather is so obstinately unpredictable. Its also why, for example, we're not entirely sure what will happen to our oceans as more carbon dioxide circulates within it.
There is always uncertainty ... but we should allow science to inform our public discussion ... instead, we listen to politicians for answers. And our politicians have shown themselves incapable of distinguishing between public good and personal advantage.
One last thought ... its not "just" about climate change. China and India have been in the news recently, for their air pollution woes. Yes, good, old-fashioned, highly visible and toxic air pollution. As someone who has visited both these countries in the last ten years, I can attest to how horrible it is. It smells bad, taints every breath you take, and significantly shortens people's natural lifespan. We have it too ... not as bad as there, but a substantial number of Australians die prematurely because the air in our cities and towns is laden with gaseous, liquid and particulate pollution. Managing climate change and air pollution go hand-in-hand. You don't need to believe in climate change to want to manage air pollution. It (ie congestive and obstructive lung disease) is set to overtake heart disease and stroke as the world's leading cause of mortality.
mr shark :
21 Jan 2016 7:23:20pm
Amazing Grant, if you combined all the emissions from travel and lifestyle created by the climate associated activities of the climate activists it would be a mere drop in the ocean compared to all the rest of the manmade emissions we create in a single day.
But you know that don't you ?, just another straw man you throw up to divert discussion away from the main game.
and of course, you then throw in the poor.
just like the coal industry (who could not give a flying fruit bat about the poor 99% of the time) you are happy to overlook the compensation given to the poor when labor brought in the carbon tax or the fact that the poor will be the most affected by rising temps as they spend far more of their income on the basics of life.
they can't afford to keep air conditioners on all the time like those of us who are more well heeled . But your ludicrous solution is to do nothing because of short term pain and let us all pay far more in the long run.
just like all new technologies , initially new devices cost more, but advances and economies of scale bring down prices, we saw it with CD and dvd players and a myriad of other devices and we see it with solar.
You fall into the climate fanatic bag yourself, your obsession with it all being a hoax leads to total subjectivity , you are not open to any possibilities that changing to other forms of energy may have some good sides. For you and your ilk , objectivity doesn't exist regarding this issue ,as far as i can see,you are incapable of looking at the topic rationally, instead, you rationalise your viewpoint by bringing up these objections, which are trivial when we consider the main game and the disastrous possibilities that we may face if we do nothing .
I really feel sorry for those of you here who have such closed , fixed minds.
21 Jan 2016 9:00:55pm
But you are not actually saying the poor would not benefit from the availability of cheap energy are you Mr S?
I hold hopes for solar as well but it will need to evolve like the advances in the other developments you mention to become commercial. I passed on a good news story about AGL and First Solar's new 155 MW solar plant at Nyngan and Broken Hill to a colleague, not expecting a response. My colleague, who actually knows stuff (I prefer to surmise), points out that the plant will operate with an available capacity factor of about 26 to 27% (for efficiency comparison purposes wind's ACF is in the 30 to 40% range). This plant was constructed at a cost of $3.1m per MW (wind $2.3m/MW). Governments contributed $232m of the $486m cost. The power generated is subsidised to the tune of $65/MWh under the Large Scale Renewable Energy Certificate (LREC) scheme. This compares with spot prices of $35/MWh. As a result retailers have to pay up to $100/MWh to get the power and LRECs which they then hand over to the government under the RET scheme.
Apologies if I have garbled any of this but I suspect that the poor people of India won't be getting much benefit from similar solar schemes any time soon. Coal or nothing do you reckon? Or perhaps partially dried cow dung may have to do for the interim. It's natural, it has to be healthy right? (Cough, particulate matter).
21 Jan 2016 8:39:48pm
Those climate scientists and fanatics are probably all in the group of 62 individuals who have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billlion. Who can you trust these days eh?
Chris O'Neill:
21 Jan 2016 8:58:14pm
"Surely a tax on climate scientists pay packets"
Some people just love to shoot the messenger. They think it solves the problem.
sarah too:
22 Jan 2016 10:43:05am
What about the increased price of goods and services that inaction would cause? When more people struggle in the heat, won't that increase demand for health services? When there are more bush fires, won't insurance become more expensive?
22 Jan 2016 12:35:58pm
Yeah good idea give insurance companies a justification to up premium like they didn't need it!!
What's more damaging to health cold or heat?? me I will take the heat any day
Monty B:
21 Jan 2016 4:39:06pm
But there hasn't been any warming since 2015.
The Wurst Australian:
21 Jan 2016 5:06:24pm
Good Point! And the last three days in the West have been a lot cooler than ten days ago!
21 Jan 2016 10:15:17pm
You want a cooler world? sorry, thanks to the deniers, the political conservatives and the selfish greed of big fossil fuel driven industry, it's now way too late!
Might as well keep driving your petrol powered V8 - just put your foot down and turn up the air conditioning.
the yank:
21 Jan 2016 5:08:06pm
21 Jan 2016 5:16:49pm
Ha, ha, ha.... Excellent, Monty!
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:29:07pm
Of course not MB. The keepers of the sacred data haven't started adjusting 2015 down yet!
22 Jan 2016 1:06:23pm
We better go back year by year till it fits the unquestionable science thats in..I believe in climate changee but fanatics in science are as bad as fanatics of religion..there is no perfect book on anything..all can change and discovering should never be hindered by made up minds
21 Jan 2016 4:40:03pm
How to the people in Asia survive their hot environment? We will survive this and we will overcome in our own Human way...
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 5:07:11pm
Now that's the kind of attitude we don't need around here. You could be responsible for putting thousands of highly-educated highly-paid academics out of useless jobs if you're not careful with your words, Brian!
21 Jan 2016 8:34:01pm
Highly paid academics. Nice one. We all know you've dug ditches and what not, but it is pretty plain that you've never worked in academia.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 10:55:57am
I couldn't stand having to put up with academic cretins like you, Kate. You're not worth the trouble with such narrow-minded arrogance. You, my dear, are an embarrassment to science.
22 Jan 2016 11:27:43am
Really surprised that comment got through the regulator.
Just an insult that's all - I thought you had an IQ of 163 Ben, why don't you use it.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 1:37:57pm
Feeling a bit upset today are you, jonmarks? Just want to diss me for a bit of fun, eh? Well you'll have plenty of company the way it's been in this thread the past 18 hours or so.
Would you like anymore of my personal details so you can diversify your attacks a bit more, because the IQ insults are getting a bit lame since Losimpson brought cleverness into the discussion? I guess a lot of people must have inferior complexes about their IQ not meeting up to the standards of their public image. Best of luck with it. I'm Capricorn too if that helps.
22 Jan 2016 11:29:27am
I don't see what's arrogant about pointing out that academics are not highly paid, but I guess you are the one with the giant IQ, so I guess your baseless assertion trumps my actual lived experience.
That's a shame that you didn't go into academic life. You seem like you'd be such a lovely presence in the common room. I especially love the way you demand respect and good manners toward yourself, while calling other people names. Lovely.
22 Jan 2016 1:20:30pm
I'm always fascinated by the denier's ready default to personal attack. Why is that?
Academics do not earn large amounts of money. Nor do scientists. But the loudest voices in the anti-climate science camp are very, very well paid media commentators and mining (or ex-mining) executives.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 4:23:50pm
"Academics do not earn large amounts of money."
That's quite subjective, Snake. Are you trying to suggest that academics make less than Newstart? Give me some examples.
From where my ATM stands, anyone who makes more than $500pw is highly paid.
22 Jan 2016 1:08:05pm
And ditch diggers dont see the world or think eh? How eletist
22 Jan 2016 2:58:49pm
That's what I said, was it?
22 Jan 2016 12:09:21pm
Ben: For a man so smart, you were a bit hasty in applauding a not very smart comment. Now if Brian had said the Middle East, he may have had a point. But Asia? Hot yes, but with plenty of water. Not at all like Australia.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 2:52:31pm
This is the Internet, Tom1. Haste stops waste ... of time I can spend doing productive things like mopping the floor or straightening the paintings on the wall or scratching my back with a stick.
The thing about water in Asia (in the Equatorial places I tend to find myself in) is that most of it seems to come out the pores in my skin (for a few months anyway until I have had time to acclimatise).
I was more responding to Brian's mention of a very good point in the context of Darwinian Faith. Life for the well-to-do has never been easier on this planet than it is today. The Human Race is perhaps doomed, but it won't be the warm weather. The temperature changes by more than 2*C every day in this place. Up and down ... up and down ... and there are seasons too, warm, cool, wet, dry, in the middle. The temperatures change by far more than 2*C as a natural process, and none of that has ever stopped our species before.
All we can hope for is survival of the fit, because them's the rules, and that's how we got to the top of the food chain with such wimpy little primative (not a typo Kate, I refer to primates, not primites), bodies and herbivorous teeth.
21 Jan 2016 5:09:52pm
It isn't only humans that inhabit this planet!!
And much life, eg plant life, is unable to migrate to places with a more agreeable climate.
21 Jan 2016 9:16:30pm
Hey, guess what, a man named Nicholas Stern considered that. He determined the cost that would be required to 'fix' climate change and the cost associated with 'adapting' to the changed climate. The result was that fixing and preventing was easier than adapting.
And as for your Asia argument, we suffer higher temperatures often. Even if you were right, then whilst WE may do fine, the people living there would suffer immensely. But you wouldn't be forgetting that other countries exist do you?
21 Jan 2016 4:41:01pm
Yes, this is bad. Plus there is the problem of dwindling fresh water supplies and rising ocean levels and acidity.
There are ample reasons for concern and for action.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:30:48pm
Thankfully GJA, there is an inexhaustible supply of ... how can I put this ... "fertiliser" from the alarmists on these pages.
spacey 101:
21 Jan 2016 6:10:35pm
And yet FG, you've completely failed to provide and rebuttal that a 5 year old with an Internet connection couldn't refute una bout 5 seconds.
So come on, give us your evidence, real, worthwhile evidence that there's nothing to see here.
Remember, don't bother posting nonsense that has already been refuted. Don't post anything that if I type into a search engine takes me to nonsense discredited denialists web sights.
Good luck!!
carbon-based lifeform:
21 Jan 2016 6:21:11pm
As usual, the Deniers just can't accept facts.
There's more fertiliser coming from the deniers than those who accept scientific facts.
Seems like talking to deniers is like talking evolution to creationists. Totally impossible.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:21:17pm
Tell you what CBL. You present what you say is a fact. I'll respond.
What is it with name calling you think will be persuasive?
21 Jan 2016 9:25:09pm
FACT #1: Svante Arrhenius found in 1896 that a greenhouse with a higher CO2 content would absorb heat better.
FACT #2: Human Industry, power generation, and anything based off of combustion of fossil fuels produces CO2.
FACT #3: The planet has a carbon cycle, with the majority of carbon being stored as CO2 in the ocean. This Carbon Cycle is not enough to efficiently process the CO2 from industry, especially due to deforestation events.
FACT #4: Oceans store CO2 better in colder conditions.
FACT #5: Slight increases in temperature from human industry have increased the CO2 in the atmosphere.
FACT #6: Based on fact #5 and fact #1, human industry increases the ability of the world to hold heat.
FACT #7:If the worlds heat increases, the ability of the oceans to hold CO2 will decrease, amplifying the effects of human emissions.
FACT #8: This heat is held as energy in the atmosphere, making climate patterns more extreme, and yes, increasing the damage of heat waves and ENSO cycles.
FACT #9: Increasingly extreme climate patterns, both short and long term, will lead to damage to the planet and a loss of human life, as has started to happen already.
FACT #10: Economists such as Nicholas Stern have calculated that the cost of preventing damaging climate change is lower than the cost of adapting to it.
Eager for your response.
22 Jan 2016 1:42:10pm
Still waiting for a response. You said you'd respond, and I assumed you would rebut. If not, I may simply need to accept that you have no response for any of what I've laid out.
Forrest Gardener:
22 Jan 2016 4:41:23pm
Ok, O. Censors permitting...
1. Sloppy expression
2. False or sloppy expression. Nuclear power does not generate CO2
3. The earth has a carbon cycle. Otherwise false and ill-defined.
4. Sloppy expression
5. Unproven
6. Not an allegation of fact
7. Not an allegation of fact
8. Not an allegation of fact
9. Hysterical overstatement
10. Not an allegation of fact
How'd I go? Denialist level 7?
21 Jan 2016 11:13:24pm
Fact: CO2 is a greenhouse gas
Do you deny this?
Forrest Gardener:
22 Jan 2016 4:28:41pm
Thanks TP.
CO2 can be a gas. It can also be in the form of a solid, known as dry ice.
Now define greenhouse gas.
22 Jan 2016 1:24:03pm
Funny how the lime minded only pull up the other sides insults aint it.the new tolerant australia sure aint what was promised is it
21 Jan 2016 6:38:06pm
Real human waste is much worse FG, not the BS we read on these pages
I'm more concerned about the millions of tonnes of human, animal and other waste that gets put into our water systems and oceans daily. Eventually it will catch up with us.
Forget GW/CC, without clean drinking water we're all stuffed
21 Jan 2016 9:27:51pm
This is an issue. However, there is nothing that states that the planet can only address one issue at a time. Already, work is being done to secure our water future, including the introduction of high-scale osmotic filtration into recycling plants, and improvements in water supply utilisation. Not to mention the creation of new water sources.
Believe it or not, our water situation is actually improving. If we could stop hydraulic fracturing and regulate industry, it would do so even more, but that kind of policy always gets blocked in the name of economics, just like climate change.
22 Jan 2016 1:27:36pm
But supplying water pollutes.best we all move our caves nearer to the river
Chris O'Neill:
21 Jan 2016 9:52:04pm
"without clean drinking water we're all stuffed"
There's plenty of clean drinking water available for drinking. It just gets wasted on so many things that don't need clean drinking water.
21 Jan 2016 6:45:56pm
Each time you hit snooze the alarm grows louder.
21 Jan 2016 11:01:26pm
It's just a reoccurring nightmare.
mr shark :
21 Jan 2016 7:05:29pm
oh forrest , as you are one of the biggest purveyors of subjective misinformation and blather on these columns, the phrase regarding "kettles calling pots black "comes to mind ....
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 7:28:53pm
Thanks for your kind words MS. Unfortunately I cannot say I am familiar with your work.
21 Jan 2016 7:43:41pm
I bet you even deny that there was such a thing as the Great Dustbowl in the USA early last century covering over 3 states in the Mid-West. There was no such thing as multi-decade man-made climate impacts; no week-long dust-storms that blacked out the sun as far away as New York; no 'dust' pneumonia; and no long-term destruction of the environment from the "great plough-up". Oh, and the Aral Sea is still going gangbusters, right? (It was once the 4th largest lake on the planet - now reduced in size by 80% since 1960.) And man had nothing to do with that, either right? After all, man cannot have large scale impacts on the ecology or environment, right? I wish.
21 Jan 2016 8:22:49pm
Just a bit of simple maths for you Forrest:
Area of antarctica - 14,000,000 square km.
Thickness of ice - 1600 m (mean) over 98 % of area
Area of World's oceans - 362,000,000 square km.
Therefore ratio of areas = 14,000,000 x 0.98 /362,000,000 = 0.0379
Therefore antarctica's ice melting will raise sea level by :
1600 x 0.0379 = 60.64 m
Scary stuff ........... no?
No, no, no, no, no, we are just alarmists aren't we?
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:50:01pm
Gee Thor. Near where I live there are fossils of fish 200km inland and evidence that see level was low enough for humans to cross a land bridge into Australia.
Please excuse me if your apocalyptic arithmetic makes me yawn.
Oh, and is this sea level you fear likely to happen by next Thursday? If so I'll change my lunch booking.
Is that really the best you've got?
22 Jan 2016 11:46:46am
So the best you can offer FG is that sea levels have been higher in the past. We know that - but the big difference now is the thousands of coastal cities and towns, 7 billion people, depleted ocean life and forests, pressure on fresh water supply etc etc.
You see we live now not 15,000 years ago, what matters is how this effects our present world not whether it was OK before any humans lived in groups bigger than their extended families.
Forrest Gardener:
22 Jan 2016 4:46:01pm
Geez JM. The guy asks me if I'm scared and I say no and why.
Try harder.
21 Jan 2016 9:32:25pm
In this case, you are. Your calculations don't take into account:
a) the free-floating ice of Antarctica, which already affects the worlds sea level.
b) the nature of ice. Unlike other substances, where the solid form represents the densest state, Ice takes up more space than liquid water, with variations dependent on salt content, and conditions of creation.
c) the volume of the ocean. Whilst it's all well and good to try and expand antarctica over the world, the fact of the matter is that the question here is one of volume, not area.
In other words, you are being a little alarmist, as arithmetic is no substitute for proper modelling.
DISCLAIMER: I agree with the science of climate change. This comment just got to me because of its poor understanding of global sea level dynamics.
22 Jan 2016 11:17:17am
Using more accurate data the total potential change is more like 70 m. On the other hand the chance of a total Antarctic collapse is remote.
22 Jan 2016 1:46:05pm
Your predictions are inaccurate, as they don't take into account the increase in ocean size from progressively higher sea levels. I agree with the science of climate change, but making the wrong claims just makes it harder to prove the point.
22 Jan 2016 3:41:50pm
70 metres of eustatic sea level rise is about as accurate as you're going to get it. The amount of the world's surface that is within 60 m of sea level is not that large as a fraction of ocean area that it is more than a second order effect.
If we're going to get into second order effects:
You've neglected potential viscoelastic relaxation, particularly of the circumpolar peripheral bulge which will increase ocean volume.
You've neglected the direct gravitational attraction of the ice sheet and the self-attraction of the water - which can have a net effect on eustatic sea level since land distribution is asymmetric.
For a similar reason, the rotational contribution to sea level depends on where the focus of the degree 2 order 1 harmonic lies and has an impact on mean sea level change.
22 Jan 2016 4:19:17pm
If you take another look Onieros you will see that the calculation is about volume.
I don't know what you mean by :
"the free-floating ice of Antarctica, which already affects the worlds sea level."
How so?
Yes sure I know that ice takes up a greater volume than water but it's not that much and as far as the volume changes due to salinity, miniscule.
Why the nit picking? I was just trying to give an idea of the potential scale of the problem.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 9:41:54pm
The Fremantle Harbour Bridge, the rocks that make up the moles and jetties down by the beaches, and the beachside units on Rottnest Island are still exactly the same as they were fifty years ago, so when is this 60.64m thing going to start, eventually?
I've been waiting, holding my breath for the catastrophe. When do you predict it might start? Does the sky fairy work for the Commonwealth Government or something?
22 Jan 2016 12:12:32pm
Bit like the second coming isn't it!
22 Jan 2016 1:24:29pm
The rise is not uniform. Go to Miami. Check out the water in the streets.
22 Jan 2016 1:44:37pm
That amount of ice takes decades, if not centuries to melt, and you're unlikely to see any major change in your lifetime. But if we don't make efforts to try and stop or suppress climate change, then it will hit your children, and your grandchildren.
Even if there's only a slight chance of total antarctic collapse, in this situation, we must utilise the precautionary principle.
22 Jan 2016 3:44:49pm
Sea level rise is not uniform. Also it is affected by:
surface deformation
changes in gravity
changes in ocean mass
changes in ocean water density
Using one site to characterise a global average is meaningless.
22 Jan 2016 12:47:57pm
Yes actually you are correct, simple alarmism, well maybe not simple classic more like, now tell me even if all that ice was to melt, how about you calculate how long a 2 degree temp rise (that still has Antarctica, in the minus) will it take to melt it all for that 60m of hysterical alarmism?
22 Jan 2016 3:49:17pm
Assuming that temperature rise is restricted to 2 degrees (which I believe you're arguing is not necessary) we should see somewhere between 6-20 metres of eustatic sea level rise which should occur on a time-frame of between 100-2000 years.
Larger temperature rises will mean more melting.
22 Jan 2016 4:05:51pm
The reason I posted those simple calculations was just to give an idea of the potential scale of the problem.
Yes it will take a long, long time, for this quantity of ice to melt, and yes ice has a lower density than liquid water so the volume is greater, and yes as the sea level rises more land is covered so the area of the ocean increases, but no the floating ice is not the problem. If ice is floating it occupies the same volume in the body of water it is floating in as if it was liquid.
If you have the mindset of some that are only concerned about what will happen in their lifetimes then I guess you can rest easy.
22 Jan 2016 10:43:02am
Which you seem endlessly to supply.
21 Jan 2016 6:48:56pm
Thanks for reminding me GJA. There was an alarmist piece on the ABC site a couple of days ago. Oceans are now 25% more acidic than they were prior to the industrial age we were told. Huh? Oceans are no longer alkaline? If they get past neutral a percentage change on that scale would require scientific instruments to detect. But no, this acidification has ravaged coral reefs. I wondered who they were trying to collect money from.
To be fair to the ABC they simply ran an AFP story rather than put their name to it. Check out the story "World's oceans absorbed as much heat in last 18 years as in previous 130, US study finds" and ask yourself where they got reliable data from back in 1865 and how comparable the methods were with those employed now.
21 Jan 2016 9:37:01pm
You use weather data from the time, adjusted for statistical accuracy, and extrapolate based on our current data, as well as the precise formation and make-up of ice-core data.
As for the alkaline/acid thing.
pH means potential hydrogen, and is a measure of the ratio between hydrogen and hydroxide ions in the water (H and OH repsectively). If the ratio shifted 25%, that would not necessarily mean that the water became acid, simply that it changed noticeably, which would require scientific instruments, ranging from a pH meter to a full titration experiment.
As for coral reefs, coral is made of Alkaline calcium compounds, which react poorly with water of lower pH. On a concrete pillar this causes erosion, so imagine what it would do to a living creature, such as coral.
22 Jan 2016 12:39:39pm
I understand your point and understood it prior to your explanation. To describe the move as making the oceans more acid is poor science or good politics. To use the 25% figure when the actual move is quite small appears designed to mislead. To describe such a change as devastating to coral reefs is an outright lie.
You can bend the words however you like but as I have said many times the refusal of climate change activists to call out the shonkier claims supporting their cause will only create more sceptics. It would do the credibility of the believers some good to police their own ranks rather than support every bit of BS coming from their side of the debate. I don't say this unkindly.
22 Jan 2016 10:47:22am
You do understand that to say something is more acidic isn't the same thing as saying that it isn't still alkaline?
Perhaps you've never heard of the studies - and the stored material taken during them - such as have been performed historically in the Arctic and Antarctic and elsewhere?
Have you considered that science has actually advanced in all the years since 1865, or do you think it stopped there?
22 Jan 2016 12:31:45pm
Please read the story GJA. Tell me if you think it is well-written, poorly-written or written to confuse the layman. Science has advanced. To rely on data 150 years old gathered from a hostile environment using suspect methodology strikes me as being just a bit dodgy. Am I too cynical?
22 Jan 2016 2:29:30pm
Oh, I read the article, with an open mind, and found it easily readable, but perhaps you found the more complex sentences too difficult? There are literacy groups to help with that, I'm sure.
Yes, you are too cynical, too.
21 Jan 2016 4:43:48pm
I often wonder why it is that people think that 'only' 1 or 2 degrees is not that much of a problem.
As humans if our body temperature is 2 degrees higher/lower than normal average of about 37 then the emergency ward is where you probably will end up.
Being 1 degree out on geometry or navigation can lead to disaster.
Not only that, but when you look at 1 degree as a percentage, it's something like 15-20%. Maybe we should stop talking degrees and instead use the bigger figures. Some people just clearly don't seem to be able to get past 1 & 2 being perceived as 'small' numbers.
21 Jan 2016 5:08:52pm
I agree that 1 degree is a huge concern, but just want to point out the error in your arithmetic. 1 degree is much less than 15 per cent, as you should be comparing with Kelvin rather than degrees Celsius. 0 K = -273 C
21 Jan 2016 5:22:25pm
And I, in turn, will point to the flaw in your logic.
Zero degrees Kelvin has no meaning in the context of a finely balanced ecosystem contained within the atmospheric mantle of a living planet. It would make more sense to take the two degrees as a percentage of the workable temperature range of the aforementioned ecosystem.
An even better idea would be to work out the percentage of arable land in Australia that will become unsuitable for agriculture if the average temperature rises by 2 degrees. No need to ask a climate scientist - just ask a few farmers!
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 10:41:49pm
Life goes on.
22 Jan 2016 1:25:36pm
For the time being.
21 Jan 2016 5:12:31pm
You could be less scientific but it'd be a stretch.
Degrees Fahreheit or Celcius are inappropriate, as absolute zero (-273.15C) should be the base reference point.
The human body is quite adept at dealing with heat BTW... it's called sweating.
That's the thing about statistics. When people are losing a scientific argument they often turn to statistics, and when that fails they exclaim "but think of the children!!!"
And yes, 1-2C is not much of a problem. Neither is 2C+ even likely, given we have these magical things in the sky called clouds.
Somehow the earth got by in days gone by with much, much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. It has also been "snowball earth". Just ask a decent geologist. Personally I will take a little warmer over another glaciation any day, and we were overdue for a glacial phase. Thank you CO2.
Dr Who:
21 Jan 2016 5:29:13pm
As usual, Bulldust, you don't know what you're talking about.
"Degrees Fahreheit or Celcius are inappropriate, as absolute zero (-273.15C) should be the base reference point."
Absolute zero is irrelevant. Life tends to struggle if it doesn't have liquid water - which places constraints on upper and lower temperatures. (Things surviving in colder climates than 0 degrees usually rely on energy-costly homeostatic mechanisms.)
"Somehow the earth got by in days gone by with much, much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. It has also been "snowball earth". Just ask a decent geologist."
Not concurrently with humans.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 5:58:21pm
"Life tends to struggle if it doesn't have liquid water "
Agreed. When the temperature on the globe gets above 100*C or less than 0*C, we might have something to worry about. Let's talk again then if either of those things happen.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 7:32:07pm
"Life tends to struggle if it doesn't have liquid water "
Agreed. When the temperature on the globe gets above 100*C or less than 0*C, we might have something to worry about. Let's talk again then if either of those things happen.
Dr Who:
22 Jan 2016 10:50:21am
Ben, above about 60 degrees is only suitable for some life forms - mostly single-celled thermophilic bacteria and archaea. So I think we should worry about temperatures below 100 degrees. On the other hand, if you're a single-celled organism with no brain, your complacency might be justified.
Actually, given a more comprehensive look at ecology and adaptation, I think we ought to be worried about temperature changes as low as 0.9 degrees, if those changes occur over less than 500 years. The coral reefs don't seem to be coping too well.
22 Jan 2016 11:27:34am
By talking such ridiculous extremes in temperatures you have gone into the supernatural red herring quadrant.
Besides which, we haven't even got a decent handle on temperatures on our planet in any case. People talk of average global temperature anomalies varying by hundredths of degrees (C/F/K take a pick) as if it is meaningful, when these data have been massaged from highly questionable ground-based thermometers unevenly distributed and often in grossly inappropriate locations.
But we could use more consistent measures like those from satellites, but then the warmists don't like them because the UAH and RSS sets (which they are erroneously trying to discredit on Youtube - possibly fraudulently) show no significant warming for almost 2 decades. Inconvenient that ... don't want to derail that big gravy train.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 1:32:57pm
Where I come from, water is still liquid at 60*C, so what you are trying to tell me now is that life tends to struggle even if it DOES have liquid water. I'm glad you've made your mind up at last.
21 Jan 2016 6:09:29pm
Sorry dude, but temperature scales and units there of are a little bit arbitrary really. All that 1/100 of the energy required for water to transition from only just melted to not quite evaporated (in the case of kelvin/centigrade)....
And yes, 1 or 2 centigrade do matter. There's zero centigrade difference between a solid and a liquid, between a liquid and a gas/vapour, between a solid and a gas/vapour.
Photosynthesis doesn't occur below a certain temperature for instance. Other reactions are blocked at higher temperatures because reactants are consumed by reactions that wouldn't have occurred at lower temperatures etc...
And as for sweating. Well, that's dependant on both temperature and humidity. There was one simulation ran with a 6C increase in temperature (just for fun/to see what would happen) and due to increased heat and humidity, most of Australia was rendered uninhabitable (without a space suit).
And then there's that whole issue of temperature gradients to facilitate heat transfer......
I could go on about dodgy statistics or patchy science but what's the point.
22 Jan 2016 11:32:45am
6C increase in Australia simply won't happen barring an extra-territorial catastrophe. The only place such things are simulated to happen is in IPCC climate models which are demonstratively wrong. All of them are significantly over-estimating temperatures.
Shame when observations don't match the models. Unlike real scientists, those on the government-funded teat don't change their hypothesis when the models fail. That is the opposite of science ... at least the way I was taught, but then I am old school. I haven't been exposed to the post-modern pseudoscience stuff. I guess this isn't how "science" is done now.
Oh BTW simulation/models =/= evidence.
21 Jan 2016 6:18:11pm
Bull, the survival of the earth is not really the issue is it.
A bloody great big asteroid could hit the planet and wipe out most life, but the earth would probably still survive even with a big dent in it somewhere.
Personally, I'd rather we didn't make our own in-house asteroid effect. Let's play the odds and try and keep things going for as long as we can.
21 Jan 2016 6:21:06pm
You live in the middle of a large city right?
If you didn't you'd be pretty concered about that rise of 1 lousy degree because it means a dif in the weather.
More and worse cyclones, or droughts or fires. That's what this article is properly about, not the number you've set your air con to.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 10:46:46pm
"The human body is quite adept at dealing with heat"
Whether it's hot today or cold, be aware of your feet first, and the rest of your body will adjust to suit the treatment you provide your feet. They look tough, but feet are fragile and important accessories to our very livelihoods. When your feet are comfortable, your life is pleasant ...er.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:18:43pm
We do all realise that the degrees used in navigation are not the same as the degrees used to measure temperature, don't we?
21 Jan 2016 6:27:48pm
As far as the machinations of the human body machinations go you are right but there is more to it (and summer does not last all year). "It is pure folly to think that air-conditioning is our saviour. " but not quite for the reasons put by the author. The big threat to us comes indirectly via the wider effects on the environment; ocean level, water supplies, fires, crop failures energy demands and so forth. The effects you mention will place much more of a burden on various other animals and plants than humans.
The figures used for comparison are a poor choice for making the case.
I also question the line "... which places fly-in-fly-out workers at high risk." As it stands most fly in fly-in-fly-out workers are probably at lower risk from the effects of heat than the rest of us because in that respect they are typically better looked after.
The effects mentioned in this article are real but not significant in the scheme of the threats of climate change. The author did herself and climate change a disservice by trying to draw too much from the debate for her own cause with a poor argument.
21 Jan 2016 8:01:28pm
Heat exhaustion is a serious and the article is true but poorly argued. The choice of figures for comparison is poor. "... which places fly-in-fly-out workers at high risk." Fly-in-fly-out workers are probably less at risk than the rest of us because in that respect they are typically well looked after by their employers.
The author rides the climate debate too much to focus on the author's field of interest. The much bigger threat to humans from climate change is from the wider environmental consequences; oceans level, water supplies, crop failures, fires, energy demands and the direct heat impact on various animals and plants will be far greater than on humans.
21 Jan 2016 9:39:23pm
Actually, the 1 or 2 degree change refers to global atmospheric and oceanic temperatures. In other words, the amount of energy in the atmosphere, expressed as heat. As this number increases, summers become hotter, winters become colder, the ENSO cycle becomes more powerful, and the atmosphere as a whole acts much more violently. 1 or 2 degrees could see us with records in both directions.
22 Jan 2016 12:55:00pm
It does not it has always been air temp, ocean temp is the excuse to hide the pause open your eyes!!
New World:
21 Jan 2016 4:50:25pm
Our Politicians seem to be able to avoid getting hot. They sit in Air Conditioned cars, Air Conditioned offices, Shopping centres are Air Conditioned. So if Politicians do not feel the heat, how would they know our planet is warming.
I know I do not notice the heat too much myself, the house is Air Conditioned, My Solar systems means it is affordable to run the Air Conditioners. My cars have been Air Conditioned for a good number of years now, so saying it is getting hotter is falling on deaf ears, since I can avoid the heat.
I remember as a child I waked miles and miles to the swimming pool. That was when I knew how hot it was. My creature comforts keep me cooler now than when I was a child. Talk to me how hot it was many many years ago for that was when I felt the heat.
21 Jan 2016 4:56:43pm
Hottest year, eh? How long have records been kept? If we assume a date around 1890 (when the first US civilian weather monitoring group started) you are still only looking at 126 years worth of records. That is 0.063% of the time that has elapsed in the last 2000 years. Not even .1 of 1 percent. And Earth has had a climate for MILLIONS of years.
But we're so damnably sure that 2015 was the hottest year.
Silly humans.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:21:22pm
It's ok Steve. In 10 years time 2015 will almost certainly be adjusted to be much cooler than it is now.
Just look at what happened to 1997. One day it's a poster child for melting ice and polar bears. Now it doesn't even crack a mention.
Sea Monster:
21 Jan 2016 6:57:01pm
The BoM switched from manual to computer instruments in 1955. Most of the observed warming has occured since 1955.
You'll like this next bit: the homogenised and non-homogenised datasets since 1955 are identical. No difference.
But you speak with such confidence against 'adjustment'(homogenisation). What do you see is the problem? Do you, for example, beleive that moving station to a different location will yeild different results? Or that trees growing near a station will cause different results?
Or do you object to the statistical methods the BoM used? If yes can you please tell me what you think they got wrong.
I would point out that your attitude seems to be one of condescendion towards people who accept the scientific credentials of BoM. You seem to think they've been duped. I would suggest perhaps that The Australian has duped you. I don't think they've told you the whole story.
Slightly tangential; imagine the staff time the BoM wasted dealing with the Oz' beat up. The same Oz thst claims to support smaller government.
22 Jan 2016 12:04:39am
"Do you, for example, beleive that moving station to a different location will yeild different results?"
Yes of course.If I moved my thermometer from the Simpson desert to the south pole or just from Sydney to Brisbane I would expect it to show different results.But if the globe is warming then I would expect it to show a rising temperature no matter where it was placed on Earth if the Earth is warming.But it seem the BoM equipment doesn't seem to be able to be moved 100m down the road without needing a truck load of adjustments.
And then that is not the end of it it seems that past records need to be adjusted continuously.Those Postmasters of old must have been hopeless at recording temperature seems they never got it right especially those old stations that showed a falling trend.
Sea Monster:
22 Jan 2016 11:03:03am
It seems EVAN that you have a passing familiarity with the topic. So I'm wondering why you would flippantly distort it so. You and I both seem to know stations were moved not between cities but from Post Offices in town to airfields outside. Or that stations remained in the same place but the place changed in characteristics. A field became irrigated. A forest encroached. A forest was felled. Development encroached.
And each of these events caused an observed 'blip' in the data.
22 Jan 2016 11:51:35am
By and large you would expect development to show up as supporting increasing temperatures without the need of any adjustments but a lot of the Australian stations were located in country towns that have seen very little if any growth since the early 1900's and a lot of their raw data showed a steady if not falling trend.
Sea Monster:
22 Jan 2016 2:27:19pm
But Evan most of the warming occurred after 1955 and the datasets are same since 1955. We've already covered that. Many stations show less warmi g since 1900 on the homogenised data. Why aren't you talking about those.
As I said elsewhere all the data and work is available on-line. Your gut feeling doesn't cut it. You need to tell us what the BoM got wrong.
22 Jan 2016 1:00:47pm
Sea monster
Really so you agree with Anthony Watts then!!
But how do you explain the Rutherglen station that went from a cooling trend to a warming trend? Or why they refuse meteorologist the data and how they adjusted it?
Why then do they not use the satellite data from UAH and RSS which doesn't need manual adjusting, why in fact do you not get a little suspicious of these adjust that are always resulting in early temps down and later temps up?
Sea Monster:
22 Jan 2016 2:20:23pm
I've got nothing to say about the Rutherglen station other than to refer you to the homogenisation workings BoM published on line. Tell me why you think they got Rutherglen wrong.
And then tell me about the stations where the homogenisation reduced the measured warming.
Sea Monster:
22 Jan 2016 2:43:28pm
Something I've been holding off saying cause I heard it in passing and wasn't sure.
According to climedex.org; the warming trend is smaller on the homogenised data. The Australian cherry picked the stations where homogenised data showed increased warming. Like Rutherford.
What was I saying about being duped?
21 Jan 2016 5:27:52pm
And again...
you should educate yourself about the geological time scale and the Carboniferous and the Jurassic.
The planet was much hotter then because of much higher atmospheric CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Science has proven that!
The issue now is that we are taking the CO2 sequestered in the Jurassic and pumping it back into the atmosphere, which will take the earth back to a carboniferous climate. That means hotter than in any of the time homo sapiens has been around and it's entirely due to atmospheric CO2.
At least we know evolution doesn't work in reverse so the chances of the dinosaurs reappearing are very low, although some of the posts here might suggest otherwise!
21 Jan 2016 5:35:36pm
You don't have to be ignorant. The article says: "since records began in 1880". See what happens when you read?
21 Jan 2016 7:00:29pm
The title of the article does not make that qualification.
And so what? What does the hottest year of the last 130 actually mean? My point is we have no longterm context for this data. I never see the sun mentioned in any if this. The sun is over 98% of all the matter in the solar system. How much CO2 dies humanity pump out a year compared to the tonnage of solar material that hits Earth?
You listen to scientists like Christians listen to priests.
21 Jan 2016 7:26:48pm
50 million years ago there was a warming even caused by volcanic CO2 emissions called the Initial Eocene Thermal Maximum (IETM). In this event, ocean temperature rose by 5 degrees and 50% of all species on the planet died out.
That warming took place over 30,000 years. We are on track to see the same warming in 100 years.
The earth has been warmer than it is now. the thing is - human population was in the hundreds of thousands, not the billions. Can we sustain agriculture if our population increases by 50% and it gets warm enough to desertify our farmlands?
CO2 is a greenhouse gase
Greenhouses gases cause warming
We're emitting a lot of CO2 we see a lot of warming.
This is not complex.
James Murphy:
22 Jan 2016 12:38:55am
Tonyp, yet again you deliberately misrepresent the facts, demonstrating that your comprehension of anything scientific is, at best, superficial and rudimentary.
You seem to claim that CO2 alone caused the PETM, yet there is no general agreement with regards to a satisfactory causal hypothesis, indeed, many factors appear to have played a part in this. Carbon isotope ratio changes are but 1 aspect of the puzzle.
As for your 50% claim, I have never ever seen such a definitive figure, and you fail to mention that as a result of large scale extinction of benthic forams (again, you claim it is 'all life' but this is also incorrect), shallow water foams, and dinoflagellates do not seem to have suffered the same fate, rather they became more abundant.
There's also very little evidence to suggest that land-based life was adversely affected by the PETM - based on North American fossil evidence anyway. Indeed, there is some correlation (not necessarily causation) between the PETM and the rise of mammals, including primates.
If you have evidence to show that CO2 was the ultimate cause, and that 50% of all life on the planet was wiped out, then please, share your (peer reviewed) work with us all. As a geologist, I'd be very interested to read it.
22 Jan 2016 11:09:08am
As a geophysicist I find your mendacity astonishing.
Yes, there are other theories about how the PETM was initiated. Or, more accurately, there is one other theory about the PETM, namely, that temperature rose a little due to volcanic CO2 then a bunch of clathrates boiled out releasing huge amounts of methane which oxidised into CO2 either in the water column or the atmosphere.
If you're aware of any other hypotheses I would be glad to hear them.
The extinction rate is calculated on species count and includes 80% of all marine species. Since extinction can only happen to species that seems the sensible metric to use. The forams and the dinoflagellates prospered because the stuff eating them was dead.
You simply can't have it both ways. You can't say: marine life was okay because the forams thrived (even though most everything else died) and nothing happened on land because there was not as much species loss as there was in the water.
22 Jan 2016 1:08:25pm
As you are a self proclaimed expert these eruptions did they only erupt CO2? Was there an particulates in the ensuing cloud from the eruptions or was is pure CO2... I mean come off it the current volcanic eruptions that prevent air travel is that the CO2 you think...
22 Jan 2016 1:54:20pm
Particulate matter from volcanic eruptions stays in the atmosphere for years, elevated CO2 levels persist for decades to centuries.
Particulate matter does not affect long term trends.
22 Jan 2016 2:23:02pm
So it was the CO2 that killed everything, nothing to do with the clouds of particulates affecting anything... is that your claim??
Lets say those massive clouds of particulates hung around for years you think that would have no effect?
I think I have my answer....
22 Jan 2016 2:44:16pm
Well, 80% of the species that died off were in the oceans. It's not easy to see how the particulates could have that dramatic an effect under water. I look forward to your explanation.
Also, did you notice significant mortality spikes in the wake of Mount St Helen's or the Pinatubo eruption?
21 Jan 2016 9:43:55pm
Actually, we have a pretty good idea going back to the formative years of Antarctica, as ice forms differently based on temperature. However, the difficulty is incorporating this into the global model, and doing it in such a way as to be scientifically sound.
But as for CO2, just look up Svante Arrhenius. We've known for a great deal of that 136 years that CO2 was a greenhouse gas. Arguing the point now just makes you seem recalcitrant.
21 Jan 2016 6:39:08pm
@ Steve
"Hottest year, eh? How long have records been kept? If we assume a date around 1890 (when the first US civilian weather monitoring group started) you are still only looking at 126 years worth of record"
Even if records only began in 1950, the statement "2015 is the hottest year since records began" would still be completely true. What is the point you are trying to make and how is it relevant?
"So earth has had a climate for MILLIONS of years" - yes earth HAS had climate for millions of years. What's your point? There were no humans around for most of the millions of years. For many millions of years planet of Earth was one huge snowball. So what?
Prime Lemur:
21 Jan 2016 6:51:52pm
Steve, we only have detailed meteorological measurements, over broad geographical areas, for about a hundred years. We do have detailed (but uncalibrated, unauditable) measurements going back much further, in certain locations (for example, London, Paris, Rome).
Then we have anecdotal evidence of exceptional (ie noteworthy or abnormal) weather events going back much further still (more or less back to when any form of written records began).
Then we have the archaeological records, the biological records (eg in ancient trees, corals), ice cores, isotope ratio records.
And the geological record, which if interpreted correctly, go back to when the Earth first had an atmosphere.
This is why I'm not fond of arguments transmitted through political channels. And that also goes for claims about "hottest years" like we're discussing now. Both sides seize on single issues like this as further proof they've been right all along.
Everyone needs to be critical and sceptical about what they're told ... absolutely! But we need to listen to what a hypothetical "100 experts/scientists" might say. We don't ignore number 100, because the first 99 all agreed. A concensus is persuasive, but people like Charles Darwin were that "Hundredth Man (or Woman)" (yes, I'm a Rudyard Kipling fan). But if you are that 100th person, dissenting from 99 others, you need compelling evidence, strong enough to get the other 99 to grudgingly admit you might be right. I just don't believe we've seen that yet.
And in the absence of compelling evidence, you can't blame people for going with what is a strong concensus. Sceptics always have a role, my friend, in preventing or curbing the worst excesses of those who think they are righteous. Those who want to close all coal fired power immediately. Are we all going to sit in dark houses, and cook with gathered wood (or dried cow dung, the single biggest source of cooking fuel in India)? I don't think so. But our scientists, engineers and public servants are eminently capable of developing a staged, planned and budgeted shift to other sources of energy.
We *should* be "green-lighting" such a process now, so it can done without destroying our standard of living. At least until that "exceptional proof" comes along.
21 Jan 2016 7:20:34pm
I guess maths is not one of your stronger points:
> still only looking at 126 years worth of records. That is 0.063% of
> the time that has elapsed in the last 2000 years
Actually, 126 is 6.3% percent of 2000, not 0.063.
By the way, the Earth had climate for BILLIONS of years, not just millions. Now, in that timeframe, we are not sure that 2015 was the hottest year, in fact, we're certain that it wasn't. The early Earth was much hotter. Molten surface, actually, and that beats 2015 hands down. What we are sure of is, though, that it was the hottest year since we keep records.
However, what happened billions of years ago is not that important today. Life has survived pretty much everything since it appeared and will probably survive anything we can throw at it. The important question is, can *we* survive? Life as such is extremely resilient, but individual species are not and as a general rule, the more complex and specialised they are, the less they can adapt. Bacteria and archaea can thrive in extreme temperature, pressure, radiation, acids and bases; they can even survive the cold vacuum of space. We can't. We're much more vulnerable than cockroaches, let alone single-celled life-forms. Even worse, our food supply is just as vulnerable as we are - we eat highly specialised plants and animals that are by and large in our vicinity complexity-wise.
So yeah, if we cause a temperature run-away, life will march on. The ~2 million years of evolution of the genus Homo is indeed less than one tenth of a per cent of the history of life on Earth. Just a short, insignificant blip. Even the dinos have beaten us by a factor of about 80. Where are they, by the way?
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 8:21:57pm
"The important question is, can *we* survive? "
Thinking on a macro-scale, give me One Good Reason Why?
21 Jan 2016 11:23:45pm
Ben this is an interesting position for you to take. Are you admitting here that you want all humans to die?
Is the denialist claptrap you usually spout just a smoke screen for your desire to watch your fellow humans undergo suffering up to and including extinction?
Why would you find it hard to think of a reason why humans would try to avoid discomfort, danger, and death? Especially danger of their own creation...
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 10:52:53am
"Is the denialist claptrap you usually spout "
I don't think you deserve an answer to anything with an attitude like that, Vilnir. Why don't you have a bit of a reevaluation of your manners and see if you can get over your anger and then ask questions nicely, and then maybe I'll see if I happen to feel pitiful enough towards your ilk to answer one for you. Until then, work things out yourself, hooligan.
22 Jan 2016 1:50:11pm
You are right.
If we, as a species, are stupid enough to voluntarily create an environment that we can not survive in, we deserve to become extinct.
Would be a pity, though. For a short moment it looked like as if evolution had discovered "intelligence".
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 2:36:25pm
Thank you for a thoughtful reply, Kocsonya. I also believe that there is intelligence, perhaps in Tibet or somewhere like that ??? It would be a shame to see the pinnacles of evolution torn down to fossil fuel status, but they're so few and far between.
The original question I asked myself which led to that post about reasons why comes back to some consideration of Mans' achievements on the planet. Aside from all the protestors and environmentalists who nobody with typical human nature bothers to listen to when they're not being watched, is there anything and has there EVER been anything half decent that Mankind has done for this planet; our home?
Apart from killing things, clearing things, burning things, digging things up, burying things in the earth, spoiling beautiful natural environments for profit, and acting like madmen when we have the frree time to concentrate, what have we ever done for this planet to deserve to live on it?
21 Jan 2016 4:57:09pm
Oh where do we start.
Nasa saying there was a 38% chance 2014 was the hottest 62% chance it wasn't.
10 year hiatus in warming
Yes its hot is it hotter than 300 years ago? no
21 Jan 2016 5:13:15pm
You are making a nonsensical mess of your cut and pasting of denialist waffle from dodgy websites. Get your information from reliable sources, then come back and blog..... or read my post below!
21 Jan 2016 6:09:13pm
Ooooer, don't try to take an opposing side to alpo, he has access to Reliable Data and if we can't find it, we can read his post.
An attack of hubris, alpo?
21 Jan 2016 10:58:42pm
Hey Trev,
Prove this statement from buderimboy's post: "10 year hiatus in warming"!.... C'mon, surely you can, your post had nothing to do with your own hubris, eh?
Oh, forget it, I will tell you:
a) So, it's 10 years, eh? This means that since 2006 there has been no warming? Really?
b) MetOffice dataset for the global temperature anomaly from 2006 to 2015: 0.5, 0.48, 0.39, 0.49, 0.55, 0.41, 0.45, 0.49, 0.56, 0.75. Correlation coefficient: +0.55, statistically significant. WARMING!
c) NOAA dataset: 0.6, 0.59, 0.51, 0.60, 0.66, 0.53, 0.58, 0.62, 0.69, 0.90. Correlation coefficient: +0.63, statistically significant. WARMING!
d) NASA dataset: 0.6, 0.63, 0.5, 0.6, 0.67, 0.55, 0.58, 0.61, 0.74, 0.71. Correlation coefficient: +0.54, marginal (P = 0.05). WARMING!
There you go.... Data are freely available from MetOffice, NOAA and NASA websites. To find them you have to move your a..e, they won't come to you via "psychic teleportation"!
Mark D.:
21 Jan 2016 6:16:39pm
I suggest a little experiment.
Take some thick ice, put it in a closed box and put in a mild heat source.
Record the temp over time.
The temperature goes up slowly - until the ice starts to melt - when the rate of temperature changes diminishes.
Then after a brief hiatus - the temp starts to rise again.
Which is exactly what happened on "a massive scale" on earth with the polar ice thickness decreasing.
You do not need a degree in science to tell you this ... fact ... is actually supported by the "climate change" science hypothesis.
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 12:36:26pm
Mark, try doing the maths on ice melt in Earth's current climate. Very little of the total heat we're taking in can realistically be sunk into it. <1% kind of amounts.
The 'hiatus' isn't because ice has been melting, it's because 1998 was exceptionally warm and people are eyeballing graphs, not doing statistics.
Chris O'Neill:
21 Jan 2016 10:17:09pm
"10 year hiatus in warming"
That's all over now. Global warming has returned with a vengeance.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 4:57:54pm
"The consequence is that every member of society is at risk of heat stress on hot days, and especially so on days of extreme heat."
Oh No! Call an ambulance and make sure they bring a shrink in the back. Dr Hanna doesn't like the warm weather in Australia.
They never give up trying, do they?
21 Jan 2016 5:11:02pm
Hey, Ben, stop wasting your time and make yourself useful: join a fire brigade to put those fires ravaging the country right now down. Major bushfires have been increasing over time as an effect of global warming.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 5:26:11pm
"Major bushfires have been increasing over time as an effect of global warming."
Haha, yes indeed it's even made my curtains fade and we don't even have that daylight stupid time over here in the civilised West. I think I might go into business in the water taxi business, seeings we're all about to be washed out by icebergs before too long.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 5:31:23pm
"Major bushfires have been increasing over time"
Besides, it creates jobs for firemen and insurance clerks, so it's actually good for the economy.
21 Jan 2016 7:11:07pm
What an ignorant comment.
Most firefighters are volunteers, particularly in rural areas where they are most needed.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 7:23:38pm
Oh well, they should work-for-the-dole then. Can't call yourself a fireman if you don't fight fires somehow. Is that one ignorant enough for you?
21 Jan 2016 8:05:13pm
22 Jan 2016 2:26:28pm
Bushfires are worse because your green mates stop winter back burning and clearance of undergrowth
22 Jan 2016 3:25:39pm
Yes but the greens action on stopping backburning was probably designed to and achieved even more carbon getting released because more carbon count proves them correct to throw a few more billion overseas to someone.as we have all seen fundamentalist believers of anything will happily destroy the world to forcee there idealogues onto every one .it also avoids the embarreshment of ever admitting your wrong
22 Jan 2016 3:25:40pm
Yes but the greens action on stopping backburning was probably designed to and achieved even more carbon getting released because more carbon count proves them correct to throw a few more billion overseas to someone.as we have all seen fundamentalist believers of anything will happily destroy the world to forcee there idealogues onto every one .it also avoids the embarreshment of ever admitting your wrong
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:22:44pm
Ben, give Dr Hanna some credit. She does live in Canberra. Hot air avoidance is a major safety issue down there.
21 Jan 2016 5:29:11pm
This is a brand new research program, Ben.
We need all the help we can get from shrinks too.
21 Jan 2016 4:58:56pm
While the effect of heat-waves on energy use, infrastructure, the spread of tropical diseases and personal health are undoubtedly significant it is agricultural viability and water use that are the big picture threats.
As temperature and population increase in tandem water usage per person will go up along with the number of people. Potable water is a finite resource. As competition for it increases there will be economic and military consequences which are predicted to become quite intense throughout South East Asia.
While increased temperatures do lead to a more vigorous evaporation-precipitation cycle the precipitation will tend to come in fewer but much more intense bursts causing more erosion and requiring longer-term storage of groundwater between rainfalls (which of course involves more loss to evaporation). Precipitation patterns will also change so that areas with formerly adequate rainfall will become arid and agriculturally unsustainable. Widespread ecological collapse is not impossible, in fact it's pretty likely.
Unabated emission of greenhouse gases is really really dangerous.
22 Jan 2016 12:06:12pm
" Potable water is a finite resource."
I guess it is but as almost all of our potable water comes from the worlds oceans and only 3% of that water falls on the land a year so with increasing temperature you might expect more rain so I don't think we are going to run out of fresh water just yet
22 Jan 2016 2:20:39pm
Do you think we're going to have enough for 50% more people?
Given greater rates of groundwater evaporation, greater water requirements per person for personal hydration and to sustain agriculture in a hotter climate I'm not as blithely optimistic.
21 Jan 2016 4:59:13pm
Thanks Dr Liz, but wait until you read the comments from our little battalion of denialists, dwelling in this The Drum forest, before you feel that your communication mission is accomplished. They attack using 18-year long "hiatus" sticks... which can be easily broken by a single blow of the Hockey Stick.
So, just to get the ball rolling I have updated the databases for the annual temperature anomaly coming from the Met Office, NOAA and NASA with the latest result for 2015. My database starts with the "famous" year 1998, when denialists love to start their fantasy "hiatus". Without getting into too much technicalities, I bothered to calculate the correlation coefficient for those three datasets over the past 18 years. The "hiatus" hypothesis (nay, fantasy) predicts a flat curve with correlation coefficient equal to 0 (statistically indistinguishable from 0), global warming predicts a positive value for the correlation coefficient. Anyone can get the full datasets from the MetOffice, NOAA and NASA websites and repeat the calculations. These are the results:
a) Met Office: coefficient = +0.52 (statistically significant 18 year warming trend)
b) NOAA: coefficient = +0.54 (statistically significant 18 year warming trend)
c) NASA: coefficient = +0.58 (statistically significant 18 year warming trend).
That's all folks, now: What the hell are we going to do about it?
Nothing To See Here:
21 Jan 2016 5:22:10pm
The only thing that will work is.... adapt.
Forget taxing the climate.
Forget your outrage.
Adapt and keep adapting.
21 Jan 2016 5:41:52pm
Adapting to a problem that you are causing is pretty stupid. You first start by fixing the problem that you are causing, then you can perhaps adapt to the residual mess that was not caused by you.
That's what taxing emissions and replacing fossil fuels is all about, in case you still don't get it.
21 Jan 2016 7:07:18pm
You have proved that global warming exists. I wont argu against that as we all know your excellent record in relation to data analysis. You did not, however, demonstrate that the warming is due to man made influences. Some hypothesize that it is caused by a cyclical change in the sun's magnetic structure. Of this I know not. But I worry about your flippant dismissal of the suggested need for us to "adapt". Surely when all else fails the strong must adapt to prevail over the weak.
21 Jan 2016 7:53:24pm
Hi Edward,
Given that you show genuine interest in knowing, I am happy to tell you that you can find a nice summary of the evidence supporting the specific contribution of industrial greenhouse gases emissions (CO2 in particular) to global warming in Page 8 of the "Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Summary for Policy Makers". You can download the PDF from this official IPCC website: http://climatechange2013.org/
I invite everybody with a genuine interest to do the same.
P.S. Moderator: that's a safe URL, fear not in publishing it.
21 Jan 2016 9:56:40pm
The 'sunspot' theory was disproven in 2014, as the sunspot records were found to be inaccurate. Even then, the activity that those who ascribe to this theory use as the basis for their argument stopped in 2013, with no changes.
Second, we have proven the link, statistically, using multiple forms of analysis, including ANOVA, regression, and high-tech modelling.
Finally, I must commend you for integrating social darwinism into your statement. Guess what? There is a limit to what can be done in terms of adaptation, and adapting is going to be much more expensive than preventing (the stern report said that in '04).
21 Jan 2016 6:50:59pm
@ Nothing to see here...
Yes, adapt. That's what I did. Fitted fibreglass batts in the roof space (nobody died), put double glazing all round the house, (no taxpayer subsidy there), installed rainwater catchment systems, (it goes back into the environment eventually via leach drains), got rid of the motor car (1980)and replaced with a motorcycle and an electric vehicle, and used the money I saved to start installing renewable energy generation in about 2002. Eventually (2014) installed sufficient battery storage so that my last power bill showed I imported 0 units of power from the grid (2 months), while houses in my suburb imported on average 19 kWh per day. Oh, and while the temperatures outdoors were in the high 30s and low 40s, inside the house it was about 24-26 degrees, with the air conditioner produced twice as much water as I used for my cooking and drinking.
THAT's the sort of savings you can get by adapting. Can thoroughly recommend adapting.
PS (And just as a by product, it reduces my carbon foot print, helping the environment.)
Nothing To See Here:
21 Jan 2016 7:54:41pm
Well done ...an example to us all ....at least you have done something about it .
The wittering from the blamers will soon fade .
Personally I have gone for a 40ft yacht ... off grid ... sails around cheaply ....etc
Just in case the water gets up .....sometime this century ....according to some models....
21 Jan 2016 9:59:04pm
I applaud what you have done, unfortunately, even the fibreglass insulation is unattainable for some, and off-grid solar prohibitively expensive. It's getting better, but without cheaper tech or more subsidies, it's going to take too long for many to adapt.
21 Jan 2016 5:03:58pm
Alarmist nonsense. It is a proven fact that the planet was several degrees warmer than it is now around 14,000 years ago. This is a NATURAL event that has happened before and will happen again.
And you may have missed the fact that Saudi Arabia experienced heavy snowfall earlier this month.
21 Jan 2016 6:17:40pm
This is blatantly untrue.
There is evidence of a Melt Water Pulse (MWP1a) between 14.7 kaBP and 13.5 kaBP. This was entirely due to melting of the northern hemisphere ice sheets - the southern hemisphere ice sheets were unaffected and remained stable until about 12 kaBP.
The retreat of the Fennoscandian and Laurentide ice sheets does not require an increase in average global temperature - and there is no evidence from proxies to suggest that such an event took place. What is required is simply a change in air and water currents affecting heat distribution. Some areas (at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere) got warmer while other areas (at low latitudes and in the southern hemisphere) got colder. This sequence of events is confirmed by proxy measurements.
Average global temperature was significantly lower than it is now at 14 kaBP.
21 Jan 2016 7:42:45pm
Yes Jim, climate change is a natural event and has been happening throughout the Earth's history to varying degrees. And yes, it was several degrees warmer 14, 000 years ago. This happened due to natural factors.
There is a difference in today's scenario though. Within the last 150 years approximately half of the Earth's tropical forests have been cleared. Within that same time period vast industries have emerged which have been powered by the burning of a variety of fossil fuels. The transport revolution, again within that same period, has seen millions upon millions of vehicles also burning fossil fuels. Add to that an exponential rise in the number of human beings on the planet and I think you would agree that the world of the last 150 years is a vastly different place to anything the Earth has seen before.
Now don't worry, I'm not blaming you personally for any of this. I still agree with you that climate change is something that has been around as long as the Earth. But when you clear half the forests from the face of the planet you reduce it's NATURAL ability to balance this out. And when you combine that with a century and a half of burning fossil fuels sending all manner of particles into the atmosphere you again weaken the planets ability to rebalance.
Climate change is and always will be a naturally occurring phenomenon, but our action as humans is like throwing petrol on a fire. Sure, the fire is a natural thing, but our action only makes it larger and far more dangerous, especially to us.
21 Jan 2016 7:56:24pm
Wow, Jim - all this insight and you still don't understand the difference between weather and climate.
By your logic, if it is proven that one person, once upon a time, fell off a cliff, then that is the ONLY way a person ends up at the bottom of a cliff. I could push you off and no-one should care, because EVERYBODY KNOWS that people just fall off cliffs and there is nothing to be done about it. Right.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:05:49pm
Quote: The ambient temperature for optimal human physical performance is about 11C.
Whatever you do, don't break the bad news to anybody who lives in the tropics. How does anybody ever get any work done here?
Just don't tell me I've got to give up my afternoon game of golf!
21 Jan 2016 5:58:37pm
A lot more people live near the tropice than near the poles.
By the way What is the population of Antartica - it has less rainfall than Australia - a greater land mass and is cooler?
21 Jan 2016 6:43:24pm
You seemed to have missed the word 'optimal'. Then again missing words or for that matter the whole sense of something is not exactly uncommon around these parts is it.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:25:25pm
JM, it was a junk fact in a junk article. Don't expect me to do more than point out part of the junk.
21 Jan 2016 5:05:58pm
The world is flat, there is a deity that is benevolent, politicians are all honest and using speed is not addictive, oh and it is not getting warmer.
21 Jan 2016 5:39:34pm
Alan.. you can connect the dots if you have been reading the posts here long enough!
The people who post here denying the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming all share the same political ideology as Tony Abbott, along with a similar unwillingness to open their minds to other possibilities or points of view.
It's no accident, but it is proof that the people who can believe what Tony Abbott says can also deny the truth and scientific facts!
Personally, I'd like to thank all of them for making it easier for the scientists to get their message heard and taken on board by all the reasonable people who want to understand the issue but are not necessarily well versed in science or the scientific method. It's the same reason the hard core religious callers who cannot accept the point of view that there might not actually be a God make it easier for atheists to have their message heard by reasonable people.
RobbertBobbert GDQ:
22 Jan 2016 3:59:50pm
Oh Lucky!
I bet at The TAB that it would never ever occur for a Drum article of no relationship at all to Mr Abbott but the article would still induce one or more comments or postings about Mr Abbott.
Win Again and keep on winning. How much do you miss him? Incalculable.
Mark Allinson:
21 Jan 2016 5:09:30pm
I have a Ph.D, so please don't bother calling me a scientific illiterate. I love science, always have. And I have celebrated every genuine discovery science has made. Do I believe that smoking is injurious, yes. Do I believe that vaccination works, yes. But this insane "global warming" fabrication is beyond the pale. I won't go into all the evidence that clearly demonstrates a failed hypothesis, because the people pushing this nonsense know it is nonsense, yet they persist, for personal, political, or financial reasons to distort and twist the facts. The evidence of fiddled figures and distortions grow daily. All evidence to the contrary is dismissed out of hand, as it always will be when an investment has been made in pushing a position. After being told 20 years ago that northern winters would grow progressively mild, and that snow by now will be a very rare event, Europe and American winters seem to growing colder. Point this fact out and you are likely to be told that warming produces cooling, don't you know. Imagine such an abuse of the scientific method in the current debates in Quantum Physics! To claim that one's position represents "settled science" which is now immune from all challenge - the absurdity would be utterly hilarious. It is an ugly sin against science, to misuse it in this way, and I have absolutely no respect for those who pollute true science in this fashion - how do you sleep at night? Shame on you!
21 Jan 2016 5:37:43pm
And another scientific fact the so called climate scientists are conveniently ignoring; carbon dioxide is denser than air.
CO2 will naturally accumulate in large voids in the earth's surface such as disused open cut coal mines where it might usefully be harvested for such purposes as making the bubbles in fizzy drinks.
Any excess overflowing such voids will flow harmlessly over the edge of the earth.
21 Jan 2016 7:07:05pm
The troposphere is 10 km thick. If you get to ground level, lie on the ground and breath you will notice that the bottom 10 cm of the atmosphere is not pure CO2. This is because when you do the physics properly density stratification does not turn out to work in the facile way you would like it to.
Dr Who:
22 Jan 2016 10:53:23am
Tonyp, this was a joke. Did you miss the bit about CO2 flowing over the edge of the Earth?
22 Jan 2016 11:29:35am
Phew, glad to hear that. Otherwise I'd have been worried that all the CO2 flowing over the edge of the planet would have suffocated the turtles that support it.
22 Jan 2016 3:41:29pm
A humourless activist this one
21 Jan 2016 8:07:41pm
Priceless! Thank you.
22 Jan 2016 3:44:11pm
How dumb are you.? Gas does not flow across flat things like our earth.it needs a slight decline .
21 Jan 2016 5:38:44pm
Is your PhD in selective science, or actual science? Seems maybe it's not in science at all, if you think you get to pick and choose.
21 Jan 2016 5:54:03pm
Well, John Cook, cartoonist and current PhD student at the University of Queensland, has parlayed it into a sinecure as 'Science Communicator' at that university, on the back of a ridiculous and completely discredited paper showing 97% consensus on climate change.
21 Jan 2016 7:03:20pm
A paper that has been confirmed by three different independent studies using completely different methodologies?
21 Jan 2016 8:13:12pm
Confirmed? lol
By whom?
22 Jan 2016 11:38:15am
Oreskes, Zimmermann, Doran
22 Jan 2016 3:32:01pm
NO-ONE has verified the 97% nonsense.
21 Jan 2016 6:43:55pm
I also have a PhD and I don't know what yours is in but it is clearly not Earth Sciences or atmospheric physics.
a) Warming does not cause cooling.
b) The influx of fresh water into the oceans affects salinity distributions which are critical in driving the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC). This current - more colloquially called the Atlantic Conveyor-belt - carries warm surface water northward along the US East Coast to Europe.
In short AMOC keeps US and European winters mild by carrying warm water northward.
Weakening this current (by dumping fresh water into the oceans and consequently reducing salinity-driven density gradients) reduces the strength of heat redistribution - leading to greater warming in the tropics and cooling in Europe and the US.
c) 20 years is not climate - it is weather. Earth's climate is a chaotic system and substantial large-scale oscillations occur at irregular intervals depending on very small-scale triggers. An unprecedentedly large Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) event dominated the period 2000-2012 changing heat distribution patterns and resulting in a statistically significant change in observation bias (global observations are normally biased by sampling restrictions - most weather stations are on land, satellite orbit obliquity restricts surface coverage and a single satellite can only monitor a small portion of the surface at any one time preventing simultaneous observations).
d) The top 2km of ocean has been warming at 0.04 K/year since 2003. Taking relative volume and specific heat into account that is enough energy to warm the entire troposphere (10 km thick) by 19 degrees a year. If there is no warming occurring where is that energy coming from?
e) RMS is not the appropriate error metric for a chaotic system with poorly sampled initial conditions
f) I am sure that my having a PhD does not qualify me to wade into your field of expertise without reading any of the literature and throwing off ill-informed comments based on half an hour of google-searching crackpot web-sites. The assumption that somehow it's ok for you to do the same in reverse strikes me as singularly inappropriate.
g) Read the journals, not the crackpot web-sites.
22 Jan 2016 2:37:44pm
So read sceptical scienc oh sorry crackpot..
Even if what you say is true, how can you say it is all down to human emissions of CO2, why is the terms of reference for the IPCC only the impact of CO2??? Very scientific that.
But you prove Marks point.. you instantly refer to crack websites. You cant debate people who have closed minds... makes me wonder how you could possibly be a scientist with such blinkered and activist views and words
21 Jan 2016 7:09:24pm
Is your real name Mark Allinson? I am not saying it isn't but even such a claim has to be treated skeptically. Someone with a Ph D posting on a site where pseudonyms are usual and advised should know that.
Even if Mark Allinson is your real name what is the point of claiming a Ph D for kudos when you rubbish others with Ph D's that disagree with you; obviously there are plenty.
Your comment is evidence that you do not have a Ph D; not absolutely conclusive evidence I know and even if you do it has the be questioned not just what the Ph D was for but where you got it?
Are you feeling well today (not being as flippant as that may sound)?
21 Jan 2016 7:09:52pm
Mark, are you the same person I find when I do a search for your name, PhD and Australia? The one one with a PhD in English literature? If you are, for shame. If not, accept my apologies. As another scientist, I disagree with your comments. Little evidence to the contrary is actually shown, as far as I have been able to track down - most appears to be along the same lines as the "proof" that vaccination causes autism, which is debunked time and again, but continues to appear. I do not believe that the BoM, NASA, CSIRO and similar reputable organisations are faking the data. Predictions of colder winters (in some places) as a result of global warming have been around for many years. For example, if cold water melt from the polar icecaps increases enough to disrupt the Gulf Stream, the likely effect on Europe in the winter will be negative at times. You will note that the Northwest Passage had comercial ships in it from 2009, centuries after it was effectively impassable. And so on.
21 Jan 2016 8:37:01pm
Congratulations on procuring your PhD. I haven't got mine yet but I still look forward to opening every new packet of breakfast cereal in the hope that mine is just one bowl of fibre away!
Am I calling you you a scientific illiterate? You bet I am! it's clear that you don't understand the scientific method and struggle with the logic that underpins cause and effect. Your feeble attempt to draw a parallel between the increase in climate extremes and quantum physics proves that in spades!
I am also calling you a right wing ideologue who is filtering facts, distorting and twisting the facts, and basing your views on the propaganda of charlatans like Monckton just because it helps you protect your ideological world view.
Shame on YOU, mate. Shame on you for either lying about your PhD in science or for being so derelict in your application of what you think you know that you have diminished the value of the PhD across the board.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:15:35pm
Dr Liz, a supplementary question if I may.
Pick an Australian location. Tell us how may days each year the daily maximum in that location was over 30 degrees (or any other figure of your choosing) in the last 10 years and how many days in any previous decade of your choosing.
Me? I'm not persuaded by your alarmism. See, I've heard that the satellite record disagrees with the global calculations you quote. That's why alarmists are currently doing their best to discredit the satellite record.
21 Jan 2016 5:28:18pm
That best of all sources for scientific fact - "I've heard". Somewhere in the same category as anecdotal evidence.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:49:07pm
Fredn, your response suggests you are not familiar with the controversy.
Google is your friend!
21 Jan 2016 6:51:03pm
And your enemy if you look in the wrong place - which is very easy to do if you search for let's say 'reasons climate change isn't real' instead of 'the science of climate change'.
And then you have to read.
22 Jan 2016 3:19:36pm
Or Google all make an informed decision.
Love to know who told you which is the wrong one?? Maybe you could enlighten.
Me I read as many as possible
Dr Who:
21 Jan 2016 10:56:51pm
Google can also tell you that vaccines cause autism, the world is only 6000 years old, Barack Obama is a gay Muslim terrorist and a communist, the moon landing was faked, and the CIA caused the collapse of the twin towers on 11 September 2001 using chemtrails - if you go to the right websites.
Looking at your comment, I'd say that you're visiting at least one such website.
22 Jan 2016 10:48:05am
FG, My response was one line. I don't see how you can get any suggestions of my level of knowledge. Disagreeing with you is not evidence of a lack of familiarity with anything. Dismissing facts is your standard operating procedure, so dismissing others and their opinions out of hand is to be expected.
21 Jan 2016 8:39:16pm
I've heard. I wore a jumper. The talk around here is. I remember years ago.
Yes indeed - the scientific method is all the rage among the warming-doesn't-exist brigade,
21 Jan 2016 6:51:28pm
The satellite data are being raised by denialists as the gold standard when in fact they are not.
a) Orbital obliquity means weather satellites observe a sub-set of the planet (in particular they exclude the poles)
b) Satellites make observations at altitude and their readings are affected by intervening atmospheric conditions.
c) Satellites only sample a small subset of the planet at any one point in time and their observations need to be aggregated to construct a global picture.
d) depending on orbital characteristics satellites may either:
1) go over the same limited number of ground-tracks every orbit
2) Repeat ground-tracks very slowly.
This again affects processing and the validity of extrapolation.
This is not to say that satellite data is bad, simply that it is only one of a number of data-sets and there are others with different strengths and weaknesses. And it all needs to be aggregated to detect bias or error.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 7:36:58pm
Hey TP. I said that there is a controversy and that alarmists are trying to discredit the satellite record.
I must say though that if your points are the substance of the alarmist efforts, then the calibration techniques should be examined carefully before you try to discredit the satellite record.
Kind of makes you wonder why the alarmists were so keen to have the satellites launched in the first place.
21 Jan 2016 10:41:47pm
Yes and I pointed out that what you said is factually incorrect. Denialists claim that the satellite observations should carry more weight than the statistics suggest is warranted.
It is then necessary not to "discredit" the satellite observations but to point out why they should not be assigned more weight than they deserve.
Sea Monster:
22 Jan 2016 10:50:46am
I don't like to use the term denialist. Too inflammatory.
I will, however, note that there is a PR campaign against climate science. A hallmark of its spin is an insistence that science be conducted on talk back radio and internet comments pages. The example here being FG's insistence that you provide a 'substantial' critique of the strengths and weakno of satellite data in a comments section.
Forrest Gardener:
22 Jan 2016 4:53:09pm
No SM. You are reading things I did not write.
What I said was that there is a controversy. Do you deny even that?
22 Jan 2016 2:41:30pm
So you claim you are a scientist yet use the word "denialist" and simply latched onto the latest excuse to explain the pause that we are not having.
What do you think of the latest study claiming the fish will get drunk on to much CO2 from climate change ....
If it wasn't so serious it would be laughable
22 Jan 2016 3:06:38pm
a) denialist is an entirely appropriate term. Sceptic implies that some amount of evidence can change a person's perception. There remains a portion of the populace who are unaffected by any amount of evidence. They are denialists.
b) You're right, there has been no meaningful hiatus in warming.
c) Yes, I explained some of the limitations of satellite data.
d) CO2-induced anoxia can kill humans or render them unconscious. Why do you imagine it can't happen to fish?
Forrest Gardener:
22 Jan 2016 4:51:45pm
No TP, you didn't say I was wrong because I said there was a controversy. All you did was to set out some talking points from one side of the controversy.
Or were you really denying that there is a controversy? How unscientific would that be!
Sea Monster:
21 Jan 2016 7:33:32pm
Very warm months occured 2% of the time between 1951 and 1981. Very warm months occurred 7% of the time between 1981 and 2010 and 10% of the time in the last 15 years.
Cumulative Forest Fire Danger Index increased with statistical signifance at 16 of 38 climate reference points in the period 1973-2010 with non significant increases at all remaining point.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:27:45pm
SM, my challenge wasn't that complicated:
1. pick a place
2. count the number of "hot" days in a decade
3. count the number of "hot" days in a previous decade.
Have another go.
Sea Monster:
22 Jan 2016 10:41:46am
I don't think I need to because hot months are made up of hot days. But if you think different go for it; please provide evidence that the frequency of hot days is not increasing. Or are you not up to my challenge?
Mark D.:
21 Jan 2016 5:21:25pm
It is interesting to see the "deniers" out in force.
They used to be the big movement - but even they are starting to look a bit ... scared ...
Because everything is accelerating and climate change is now talked about from everything from bush fires to changing farming regions to changing fish stock patterns.
I find the ... psychology ... interesting.
What would be MY motives if I refused to admit that things are changing?
No finger pointing - merely trying to understand myself.
I think that the tide has definitely turned and it is no longer going to be fashionable to be a climate denier.
And as public acceptance of them diminishes, and more "records fall" and even more changes to the world occur - I wonder if they will be convinced by reality - or merely keep their mouths shut.
Psychology is interesting.
I will watch with interest.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 5:54:54pm
Mark, who exactly are these deniers and what do they deny?
I'll start.
I deny that the earth is on fire.
I deny that the North Pole has become ice free.
I deny that children just aren't going to know what snow is.
I deny that the earth was a uniform paradise until the industrial revolution started.
I deny that the effect of CO2 emissions is anything but undeniable and insignificant.
Am I on the right track?
marx spots the x :
21 Jan 2016 7:13:29pm
Am I on the right track ?
Using example points of conjecture is valid , but to use extremities is just corny. Science isn't issuing statements representative of your first four examples, however will contest your fifth.
The sky isn't falling, but it is changing and governments globally are paying close attention. And, what is getting their collective attention is not simply incoming data of glacial retreat or even ice area mass, so much as whats happening in our soil and oceans. The right track may require a microscope and a rather "fast tracked 'understanding of role microbes play in the carbon cycle.
Desert Woman:
21 Jan 2016 6:05:46pm
interesting comment Mark. Yes, the deniers used to be big here, lots of them turned up for every climate article.
Where are all those names now that we got to know and love? Wouldn't it be terrible if we had to put the deniers on the endangered list?
Oh well, just another casualty of the 6th extinction I guess.
21 Jan 2016 6:27:32pm
So it's definite then, increasingly ferocious bushfires can only be the result of AGW? Nothing to do with build up of fuel due to changing burning patterns? Fish stocks? So overfishing has been ruled out? Do you reckon deforestation might be impacting on monsoons and that could be having a knock on effect to temperatures in Central Australia? Nup? Must be the fault of jolly old CO2 then.
To be frank I find your psychology interesting as well. A weather event arises and we see a quick tug of the forelock to the science of global warming. No need for a second's contemplation, it was climate change what dun it. Pardon me for saying it but your attitude smacks of credulity. That you would resent other people not instantly taking the word of others, people who do believe and will tolerate no alternative thinking, let alone questions is fascinating to me. Is there something in your personality that requires you to line up with authority figures, with consensus?
21 Jan 2016 6:58:43pm
The data suggest that it all has to do with political perception.
People who think that government regulation and interference are bad tend to believe the science of AGW must be wrong because it's being used to justify stuff that they think is axiomatically bad in all circumstances.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 7:40:24pm
And what about the alarmists TP? Those whose jobs depend on AGW being true tend to say it is true?
21 Jan 2016 10:35:23pm
Likewise those whose jobs depend on fosil fuel industries tend to disagree.
21 Jan 2016 10:47:43pm
Those whose employment depends on government goodwill would be well advised to adjust their position to best fit with the ideology of the current regime. That that doesn't happen suggests that the scientific consensus derives from the observational evidence not profiteering.
If scientific support could be purchased oil companies would make it rain in geek town.
Mark D.:
22 Jan 2016 11:06:33am
My my.
People sure are upset. Very few, very vocal - lots of comments everywhere.
But let us analyse it.
If climate change is correct, and we act - there is an initial financial cost - but there are a host of positive changes from air pollution, and the cost of power actually decreasing over time. Cost of the power distribution networks decrease. Alternative power sources for vehicles also.
If climate change is not correct - and we did the same deeds - the outcome would STILL be worth it. Just the decrease in air pollution - let alone the vulnerability of relying on petroleum products.
It takes about ... five seconds - to realize "we ought to do the same things - if climate change is true or if climate change is false.
Therefore - who cares if climate change is true science?
Both climate deniers and climate changers ought to unite on "doing something about our reliance on fossil fuels."
Instead it is a war - and that is because they are not acting on logical considerations but instead - emotional imperatives.
Interesting. But the question "in the future when they no longer have a platform to spout off (as they will be as relevant as flat earthers) - what will they do then?"
The flat earth society might reincarnate into "no climate change society."
They have a lot of experience in this area.
22 Jan 2016 2:46:07pm
Mark D
To boil it down, you think humans can control the climate by controlling CO2...
Tell me when we have adjusted the knobs to habe the climate that suits us all, just what is that by the way?
Can you also tell us the impact on the rest of the bio diversity. Lets say for example we get the sea ice to thicken up in the Artic.. what do you reckon that will do to polar bears...
22 Jan 2016 2:55:52pm
But Mark, if we did that then digging up fossil fuels and selling them might become less profitable! Won't you think of the poor corporations and their bottom line?
Son of Zaky:
21 Jan 2016 5:23:58pm
Dear Dr Hanna,
Every time an article of this sort - grounded in science and verifiable by fact - appears, all that happens is that the usual idiots turn up and shoot their ignorant mouths off.
If at all possible, don't bother writing any more for public consumption; simply keep talking with the politicians and government agencies that DO understand the problem - that is the way things will get done. When a finding by an organisation as reputable as NOAA is treated as something no-hopers can speculate about, you know the point has been reached where nothing is to be gained by feeding drooling imbeciles something merely to dribble on.
Writing stuff for uneducated clowns to yell at helps no-one, nor will it achieve anything - you can't change somebody's mind if they've already lost it.
Best wishes with your discussions with those people better suited to the label "human being". We have many fine, intelligent people in positions of authority. That's where you'll have your success, not here.
Best Wishes
Andrew C:
21 Jan 2016 6:06:52pm
I tend to disagree.
The vast majority of Drum users do not read or post to the message boards. People are interested in this stuff and it is worth continuing the discussions with the general populace and stimulating their involvement and understanding.
Anyway, the crazy deniers/adaptaphiles are generally in the minority anyway (vocal though they may be), and they tend to do us more of a favour by exposing their rather obviously flawed rationales and hilariously wrong (and inconsistent) hypotheses.
Its good for everyone to see this.
21 Jan 2016 6:13:51pm
You're not ignorant? What the hell are you hanging around with us then?
Politicians do the politic thing. If you don't think they come away from meetings with people claiming science is on their side contemplating how wet their pockets have become so quickly perhaps you do belong on this site.
Son of Zaky:
21 Jan 2016 8:15:08pm
I'm not "hanging around" with anyone OUB - in much the same way I don't "hang around" with bus passengers on those occasions I happen to be catching the same vehicle as they are.
It's called "being an individual in a crowd", and it's quite popular with normal, well-adjusted people.
Salient Green:
21 Jan 2016 7:11:54pm
SoZ, your comment was like stumbling upon an oasis after an arduous trudge through a hell of an intellectual and scientific desert inhabited by deniers and sceptics only a Mad Max director could love.
Thanks also to the mods for letting it through.
Son of Zaky:
21 Jan 2016 7:56:15pm
There is absolutely no reason to carry on taking these people seriously SG.
They are bludgers, and they are ignorant. Bludging because they want to play their own form of socialism whereby future generations pay for their jollies, and ignorant simply because they are.
This "Oh, I just want to know about..." stuff has whiskers on it - they DON'T WANT to know anything (I don't know how many times I've seen their so-called "important questions" patiently answered in forums and , you guessed it, the same "important question" pops up next time.
No need to spend any more considered effort on these clowns. Dismiss them as the time-wasters they are every time they stick their hand up, and pray that the spooks collecting all that metadata have a file already full of all the names who will be the first to cough-up all they own to pay for the damage that's being caused.
21 Jan 2016 8:02:27pm
I don't usually like personal attacks on posters, but in the case of climate change deniers I'm willing to make an exception.
22 Jan 2016 2:49:31pm
Can you name one person who claims the climate doesn't change
Oh before you say Abbott, he said not such thing...selective quotes are easy to get..
21 Jan 2016 5:24:26pm
Some of this is quite hard to believe. My second marriage on 15 December 2001 was at home at 40C, and on our houseboat honeymoon it was over 45C. As a child, my mother popped us in and out of a cold bath on hot days (and the bath water was brick red before Adelaide's water was treated). Yes, it's hot, but it always was in summer. There's a song about a prat who 'walks around in the summer time saying 'how about this heat''. This summer really doesn't seem so much worse. How are the statistics calculated? I am not a climate change denier, but I am puzzled!
21 Jan 2016 5:43:30pm
How are the figures calculated? By measuring the temperature and comparing it to the recorded temperatures in previous years - that's how.
Just because you can recall specific instances of being hot in the past doesn't mean that temperatures on the whole are not rising.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 6:12:21pm
Ah Kate. If only the relevant authorities did actually use recorded temperatures. If only the recorded temperatures didn't need to be adjusted. If only the temperature record was fit for the purpose you describe.
Tell you what. How have maximum temperatures changed in Adelaide over the last 30 years?
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 1:00:35pm
Maximum temperature isn't a good metric for this; it's very noisy. Worldwide there are more maximum records than minimum records, of course, but that's not Adelaide.
Year of the highest mean monthly temperature on record for Adelaide Airport (First station that comes up for BOM if you choose 'adelaide' that has data going way back):
Jan: 2001
Feb: 1997
Mar: 2008
Apr: 2005
May: 2013
Jun: 1957
Jul: 1975
Aug: 1982
Sep: 2013
Oct: 2015
Nov: 2009
Dec: 2015
So 8/12 months the warmest on record was after 2000.
22 Jan 2016 2:50:39pm
adjusted or unadjusted, raw data or homogenised, ACORN method maybe does it include pre 1910?
21 Jan 2016 6:54:36pm
Any one summer in any one location is weather. Climate change is about the whole planet. They're different things.
Because of wind patterns and ocean currents there are parts of the world where as the world gets warmer average temperature will drop. Temperature is not going to rise everywhere nor will it rise at the same rate. Some places will be faster and some slower.
22 Jan 2016 12:21:42pm
"Climate change is about the whole planet"
It is TP but how much of the changing climate is down to the increasing amount of co2 in the atmosphere 10% 90%?.Give us the figure so we will know if its worth spending trillions to fix or not.
22 Jan 2016 2:34:24pm
That depends what you're measuring and how you're measuring it. Let's stick to a metric that has meaning:
The last time there was a 5 degree warming of the oceans above 1850 levels was the PETM. In that event 50% of all species on the face of the planet died.
As a consequence of CO2-driven climate change we are more than 20% of the way to the same end point only we're going to get there in 250 years rather than 30,000. So CO2-driven warming has taken us more than 20% of the way to something we know a priori will be really really really bad.
22 Jan 2016 4:52:23pm
"It is TP but how much of the changing climate is down to the increasing amount of co2 in the atmosphere 10% 90%?."
Besides, it is not really possible, or useful, to calculate.
The important thing to remember is that all of the other influences (solar activity, distance from sun and so on) on global temperatures are currently negative. In other words, if it were not for the warming influence of CO2 in the atmosphere, global temperatures would be exhibiting a distinct downward trend. Which is why it is not possible to calculate a contribution out of 100% made by CO2 - it is more that 100%.
The other thing to remember is that we cannot influence our distance from the Sun, the tilt of our axis, the level of solar activity or any other influence on global temperatures. The ONLY thing that we can control is our own CO2 emissions, so this is where our efforts must be concentrated.
You see, even if the current rise in global temperatures was down to factors other than CO2, we could still reduce the damage done by rising temperatures by reducing our industrial CO2 emissions. And this undeniable truth makes all of the arguments raised by the denial industry regarding the contribution or non-contribution of CO2 irrelevant.
I think that you would be wise to find another drum to beat.
21 Jan 2016 5:26:02pm
"Most of us are feeling the heat. Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth"
Well, I can't speak for the rest of Australia, but the talk here in Perth is of the coolest summer in memory. This is the first summer I have had to wear a jumper in the evening more than once.
Of course this one statement does not mean much. But it does lead me to question the author's "research". IF she can't get that right (or feels she must falsify this particular piece of information) how can I trust the rest of her article?
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 5:44:36pm
"how can I trust the rest of her article?"
Did you trust Ben Pobjie? Maybe Dr Hanna is trying out as his replacement? She is quite hilarious to read about. Could be a new occupation for her as a standup comic if she can get some new material.
21 Jan 2016 6:08:43pm
People's memories of weather events generally seem to be pretty poor, or at least that's my excuse, but Sydney seems to have had two coolish summers in a row. There have been a couple of hot days in each but not much beyond that. I was surprised to see mention of Sydney in the story. Granted I'm in an air conditioned office now but memories of much hotter days in my school days persist. As I say though memories ranking weather events don't seem to be very reliable.
In answer to your last question I find advocates on climate science, from both directions, less than trustworthy. It seems a topic that is too hard for honest brokers, everyone must beat up every bit of data until they are only left with a bloody pulp pointing in their preferred direction. Having said that my scepticism undoubtedly directs the comment.
21 Jan 2016 6:10:58pm
"Well, I can't speak for the rest of Australia, but the talk here in Perth is of the coolest summer in memory. This is the first summer I have had to wear a jumper in the evening more than once."
You never know when things might change.
A chance meeting between you, Ben and SoZ at Kings Park might cause the whole park go up in flames in the heat of discussion.
Son of Zaky:
21 Jan 2016 8:08:50pm
"A chance meeting between you, Ben and SoZ at Kings Park might cause the whole park go up in flames in the heat of discussion"
I doubt that event is ever likely to occur HPH.
You'd be amazed at the number of people who deny that Kings Park actually exists.
And I know for a fact that it wasn't here during the Little Ice Age.
22 Jan 2016 2:13:46pm
"I doubt that event is ever likely to occur HPH."
Although we are living in an infinite universe, with infinite possibilities, I do agree with you there SoZ. I like the humour in this quote (by Vladimir Nabokov - everyone knows who he is but I still haven't read his famous novel, would you believe?):
"A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That's what I like about coincidence."
Andrew C:
21 Jan 2016 6:11:22pm
You are actually correct Tabanus. It really is one of the cooler summer's in Perth.
Doesn't say anything about AGW though (as you note), and I'm sure it was just the author's eastern states bias. They usually throw us in as an afterthought, without even considering our actual situation.
In my view this has no bearing on her "research" or the accuracy of her article.
You have identified a flaw, but, in my view, attributed it incorrectly and called into question her whole article on a trivial, throwaway line unrelated to her actual scientific opinion.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 8:06:27pm
Wait and see, Andrew. Perth is usually around a month behind the calendar. Our hottest months are usually February and March. Hopefully we'll have some over-forty weeks to come, to get to the beach and clean up the skin in that warm salt water white sands and hot sun. Summer is also the best time of the year to be homeless. I hope the sky fairy doesn't let the ones who survived last Winter down on a promise.
21 Jan 2016 6:15:19pm
Tabanus, I can remember summers in Perth over 50 years ago and they were a damn sight hotter then than now. One thing I have noticed is that it is much more humid today than it was, otherwise not much of a change.
21 Jan 2016 8:27:44pm
The "talk" in Perth may well be of a cool summer, but fortunately we don't include talk in climate statistics.
In actual measured, recorded, scientific numbers, Perth's average January 2016 daily maximum temperature is up 0.8 degrees, and the minimum is up by 1 degree (based on previous 20 year averages).
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 10:28:49pm
You better start including the talk in your methodology unless you want to fork out for the electricity bill for my heater which I have turned on for an hour or two before bed to warm my blood up for the very first time in a Perth Summer in history this week.
Science and reality are two different things. That's why scientists prefer the sanctuary of their lab'. They like to control their worlds. My World is out of control, and that's the way it's meant to be.
22 Jan 2016 11:19:34am
Global warming doesn't exist because you felt cold this week. And global hunger has been eradicated because you just ate a hot dog.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 12:13:35pm
"Global warming doesn't exist because you felt cold this week."
That's quite a relief. It's good that global warming exists because it means more jobs for boffins but I'm glad my feelings have nothing to do with it. There's a budget deficit to fix up sometime in the next couple of decades so I don't want to add to the problem with my cold feelings.
Ben Nallay:
22 Jan 2016 1:32:09pm
"Global warming doesn't exist because you felt cold this week."
That's quite a relief. It's good that global warming exists because it means more jobs for boffins but I'm glad my feelings have nothing to do with it. There's a budget deficit to fix up sometime in the next couple of decades so I don't want to add to the problem with my cold feelings.
22 Jan 2016 11:30:37am
"Science and reality are two different things."
Says it all really. We are truly doomed.
22 Jan 2016 3:29:02pm
Funny, Ben, I am also in Perth and while I am thankful we haven't had as many scorching over-40 days as we usually do I still have to keep my air conditioner running until late at night just to extract the stifling humidity from the air.
22 Jan 2016 11:25:53am
Dear kate
If that is what the data shows, then I suggest you look at where the heat sensors are placed. Next to a heat source or where the sun is reflected?
Nobody who lives in this city would believe that this is the warmest January. The unseasonal cold is a common topic conversation.
When data appears to be at odds with observations, one must check the data, not write off the observations. I am sure it is an anecdote, but I do remember the old story of how it is mechanically impossible for bees to fly. Yet we can see them flying everywhere. So if the data says it is a heat record yet 1 million people are shivering, we can't just say it is the people who are wrong.
22 Jan 2016 12:06:43pm
In a crowded field of anti-scientific jumbo-jumbo, this is undoubtedly the topper.
The "heat sensors", as you call them, are in the same place as always. That's how science works. You don't compare data from from day to day and year to year by moving the measuring instruments around. You do it by keeping the measuring instruments in the same place.
Data exists as the result of observation, not in antithesis to it. Scientific observation done under controlled conditions. I hate to burst your bubble, but actual climate data, collected by scientific instruments using strictly observed methodology, tends to be more accurate that nature strip gossip.
21 Jan 2016 8:45:50pm
You don't need to trust Dr Liz until you can figure out the difference between "weather" and "climate". That simply won't happen because your politics is getting in the way of your objectivity. I suggest you give up reading and replying to these articles and stick to your grumpy sessions with your politically like minded friends and just complain between yourselves and agree with each other.
21 Jan 2016 5:31:34pm
I just can't handle all of this negativity. What about looking at the positive side of a hotter Australia. All those homeless people will be able to sleep at night knowing they wont freeze to death. And we wont have to hear of how tough those CEO's have it when they slum it for one night a year to experience the plight of a homeless person.
The one point that gets overlooked is that global warming isn't in and of itself a problem. The difficulty occurs because of the rapidity of the changing environment. If it were happening more slowly evolution would allow us to adapt. After all, if you go back a few million years it was a lot hotter, then a lot colder. It is true that our "form" was a little different back then. Perhaps we'll devolve into some form of prehistoric mammal as things get hotter. Now that would be something to talk about.
21 Jan 2016 6:56:32pm
Or we might go extinct - which would also be a great conversation piece.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:33:32pm
Tony, none of us are getting out of life alive.
22 Jan 2016 2:35:34pm
And it is wonderful to see you putting so much effort into making sure no-one else gets out of your lifetime alive.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 8:08:56pm
"All those homeless people will be able to sleep at night knowing they wont freeze to death"
Very good to see some reality added into the mix to liven things up a little.
21 Jan 2016 5:35:54pm
Here we go folks,new year and the ABC are at it as usual more alarmist nonsense.
This has nothing to do with science,it's all about politics.
carbon-based lifeform:
21 Jan 2016 6:31:17pm
Thanks for the laugh! "nothing to do with science" is the biggest joke I've read on this site by a denier.
21 Jan 2016 8:50:08pm
"Thanks for the laugh! "nothing to do with science" is the biggest joke I've read on this site by a denier. "
I think a climate change denier claiming those he disagrees with are "all about politics" is ten times funnier, given that the only reason the deniers CHOOSE to deny the science is because the subsequent reality clashes with their own ideological and political world view.
21 Jan 2016 7:09:52pm
This has all to do with both Science (Climatology, Physics) and also Politics.... and Economics and Sociology, etc.
Science tells you what's happening and the causes of it, it can also suggest some solutions. Economics tells us the financial benefits and consequences of the various options, with Sociology providing some hints on the effects of the solutions on social stability. Politics analyses the various scenarios for action to see which ones are most feasible, efficient and least disruptive of necessary social activities.
As you can see this is a pretty substantial challenge that requires some serious collaborative work.
What's going to be your contribution, raymond?
21 Jan 2016 8:15:32pm
You're dead right. No one involved in the actual profession of climate science has ever claimed that the earth is warming. The only people who have ever done it are politicians.
In other news, up is down and black is white.
21 Jan 2016 8:15:49pm
"...This has nothing to do with science, it's all about politics."
In the words of one of our most spectacular political failures, "Please explain". Better still, justify!
21 Jan 2016 5:40:04pm
Satellite data shows that 2015 was not the hottest year on record. This mantle goes to 1998, followed by 2010 with 2015 coming third.
The problem is that terrestrial measurements are prone to error, particularly since they are based upon assumptions which are often difficult to validate. Satellite data is significantly more reliable. Unfortunately, a headline highlighting the third highest temperature on record does not attract as much attention. Indeed, admitting that the hottest year on record actually occurred 18 years ago does not conjure up the impending doom needed by reactionary authors and the media outlets who peddle climate gloom.
There may be a good argument in favour of anthropogenic climate change but Hanna's argument is weak given that it is based upon selective data employed solely for emotional appeal.
21 Jan 2016 7:17:36pm
Satellite obliquity means that satellites do not sample the poles where warming is fastest and their estimates of warming are biased low. Also, by excluding polar regions their estimates of temperature anomalies are inaccurate.
Satellites only sample a small portion of the Earth at one time and the data must be statistically aggregated to combine data from different ground-tracks at different times requiring spatial and temporal extrapolation. So if you're not a fan of statistical "meddling" you're not a fan of satellite data.
Satellites make their observations at altitude and their observations are affected by several hundred kilometres of intervening atmospheric conditions. To argue that this is inherently more accurate than in-situ ground-station readings using state of the art measurement techniques is perverse.
Satellites are not immune to bias, in fact there are several well understood biases intrinsic to satellite data. Relying on satellite data in isolation is flawed. It has to be standardised and aggregated against other data sources.
22 Jan 2016 11:42:41am
And of course all those weather stations do
1) representatively sample the polar regions
2) sample more than a small area
3) not influenced by ground conditions, and
4) are not immune to bias and manipulation
There fixed it for you
22 Jan 2016 1:59:19pm
Observational data is not perfect - well spotted. That is the purpose of statistical analysis - to detect and remove various forms of bias and error.
21 Jan 2016 5:43:29pm
It's about 0.2 centigrade degrees hotter.
If it was 0.2 degrees cooler, nobody would raise an eyebrow. Nothing we can do is going to affect the climate. It went up and down without us, and will do so with us. Get used to it.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:37:54pm
Indeed Damon. Interestingly the average daily temperatures vary 30 degrees at the north pole between winter and summer.
The alarmists don't seem to notice that is more than 10 times more than the change they say they fear.
A little perspective would go a long way!
21 Jan 2016 11:39:56pm
Your comparing a fixed rise in temperature to a cyclical variation and then have the audacity to suggest that people who disagree with you get some perspective?
That's like measuring the time it takes to make the Kessel run in units of distance.
21 Jan 2016 5:46:04pm
Nothing we do now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have any effect on lessening the rise in temperature during this century. Everything we do is for the benefit of future generations only.
21 Jan 2016 8:51:53pm
"Everything we do is for the benefit of future generations only."
There would appear to be a significant number of contributors here who are not concerned about future generations, presumably because they have no progeny.
the egg:
21 Jan 2016 5:49:36pm
I no longer care over much about global warming. Much more important to me right now is figuring out how I deal with the additional $45/50 a week needed to run on the spot when Oberleautant Morrison and his panzer driving mate Cormann inflict on us poor sap part-funded pensioners the 5% increase in GST in an environment of falling returns on any investments.
Oh 2016 is going to be a mega year for Australian politics which ever way you look at it or whoever you "support". Enjoy the wild ride !!!
21 Jan 2016 6:55:38pm
You are obviously right in worrying about the surprises the next budget have in store for us.... but whatever they are, global warming is going to make them even worse!
Can you imagine being thirsty and having to pay a more expensive water bill?
Or worrying about a fire danger, but now the insurance is more expensive?.....
21 Jan 2016 7:22:12pm
You forgot the premier of SA oh and by the way the Libs haven't introduced a rise in GST , hope that helps in your budgeting in your part pension
the egg:
21 Jan 2016 8:11:35pm
What are Morrison and Cormann banging on about then ???
the egg:
22 Jan 2016 11:48:30am
Just watched Morrison's latest non-proposal for the GST increase. Funny how any Premier (ie Weatherall) who agrees with him is good and everyone else is a fool .
He also neatly gave Dutton a hospital pass on the Manus island problem. What a nice guy !!!
Luckily my TV set survived the incident as I want to watch the A -league soccer tonight but too many Morrison's on the screen and it won't !!
21 Jan 2016 7:33:28pm
$45/50 weekly increase if gst goes from 10% to 15% ?
so paying an extra 5% of our spending will cost you another $50 ?
which means 100% of your weekly spending is 50x20 or $1000 a week.
if you are already spending $1,000 a week, i seriously doubt another $50 will be an issue.
maybe your maths are a little bit off ?
the egg:
21 Jan 2016 8:10:39pm
I worked on an overall spend including rates, water, power , health, motoring costs plus all the other household expenses of $40,000pa ie $800 a week if that helps. I allowed an estimated $80 ie $4000 pa of currently non-GST purchases which I expect to carry the full 15% from day 1 of the new regime. I know the figures are in a broad context but as a cost and management accountant in a previous life I reckon that's a fair guess. I don't expect the government to give a rats whether it helps those less able to pay the extra. I can but will just hit the super fund for more until it runs out. I may not be here by then but I won't give a rats then either.
The world is yours comrade.
PS Your $1000 a week wasn't far off. Congrats
21 Jan 2016 5:53:10pm
So Dr Liz,
It's not all gloom. You're in central Kazakhstan or Mongolia in mid winter and it's -45C.
Suddenly global warming strikes.
The temperature rockets up a degree or two. It's now a heat exhausting -43C.
21 Jan 2016 6:36:38pm
GregK, it's not only Mongolistan that thinks a couple of more degrees would be great. Canada - a first world country, apparently - is always stunningly quiet on alleged global warming. For exactly the same reason. Canda is a frozen ball of ice most of the time, and spends vasts amount of money (private and public) on trying not to freeze. A couple of degrees of higher temperatures will do wonders for its energy budget.
21 Jan 2016 6:51:55pm
Greg, you are confusing average global temperature, with specific temperatures in specific places. In any event, did you know that average summer temperatures in Mongolia are +40 degrees C?.... How much are you (and the Mongolians) going to enjoy further increases?
..... another one with the smoke of an exploded cigar on his face....
Next please?
22 Jan 2016 11:49:15am
Alpo do you understand how an average temperature is calculated?
"Average summer temperatures in Mongolia are +40 degrees C" wow maybe a few maximum day time temperatures might get that high but averages no way.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 7:32:30pm
Just think of all that pristine fertile soil down in Antarctica, just begging for someone to plant jasmine rice and coconut palms.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:39:29pm
... for the last few breeding pairs BN? Nobody should hold their breath.
Ben Nallay:
21 Jan 2016 9:05:29pm
There'll be long days. Forrest. Lo-o-o-n-g days for more productivity, but you wait until you get to the discos and experience Antarctican nightlife! You can dance all night if you have battery-powered legs.
Geoff :
21 Jan 2016 5:57:52pm
There are very big research bucks if you jump on in the global warming bandwagon. Julia Gillard forked out $42 000 000 to a mob called CRC. Guess what? Their research backs up 'the sky is falling' debate. They are even against cool burning of the bush to prevent bushfires. True!
Research shows that cool burning is carbon neutral but wildfire accounts for 30%+ of our CO2 emissions. Scientists who tell the truth get frozen out and wither on the vine. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Agree?
Jack II:
21 Jan 2016 6:00:32pm
Balanced out over 100K years, one hot year is barely just a mere blip on a chart.
When the Earth has fifty years straight of record/high temp years, then I'd take them seriously.
Global Warming/Climate Change : Follow the money.
21 Jan 2016 8:12:48pm
Follow the money. Yeah - this is all a vast conspiracy put on by those notoriously wealthy and rapacious research scientists.
Jack II:
21 Jan 2016 8:56:53pm
Well I can remember "the population explosion crisis", "the food crisis", "the oil crisis", "the ozone hole crisis ".
Scientists are very good at wrong. But, they're also very good at "crisis". I'm not that bad at history.
Follow the money, and who holds patents regarding renewable energy, nuclear power, etc.
21 Jan 2016 6:17:58pm
The one good thing about people who shall I say are reluctant to or unable to follow stats that show there is an upward trend and that's it's bad is that they are usually older people who often believe that there is a super natural being that will save us all.
The younger and more capable of reading stats and understanding these things will just take their place in the natural course of things. Hopefully it wont be too late by then though it may be.
The earth doesn't care one way or the other.
Jack II:
21 Jan 2016 8:06:35pm
Well don't include me in that sweeping statement regarding " stats " and reading charts.
I read stock market charts, in timescales from 1 minute to 1 year, for up to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week.
A 1 year or 1 decade chart regarding global temps is virtually worthless in comprehending an important long-term temp change or trend.
That is just basic chart reading knowledge.
New World:
22 Jan 2016 11:38:07am
Regarding the Super Natural being the oldies believe in saving the world, the Super Natural being did put forward the idea for Al Gore's film "An inconvenient Truth" which was created so humans would form a plan to deal with the planet heating up.
I know a bit of the origins of "An Inconvenient Truth"
New World:
22 Jan 2016 1:35:50pm
If you bother to look at the film "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" this film is about the world climate going from ice to sunny heat.
Now I put it to you one man, a representative of the Super Natural has written the film story lines of hundreds of films over many many years, plus other stuff, all to help direct the path of mankind on behalf of the Super Natural. So the Super Natural is looking after the world in a very discrete way.
21 Jan 2016 6:43:13pm
This article is just plain alarmist.
Yes facts and statistics and blah, blah is showing a rise in world temps since 1880.
Heat related deaths are currently in decline so maybe we are toughening up or learning to cope.
To believe that humanity can flick a switch and change or affect our current environment is pure folly Dr Liz!
It also amazes me that so many like your good self want to "interrupt the 'interrupted' process" with the belief it will reverse or affect current climate change. I find it a rather god-like quality on display.
Were would we be if everything that needed to be fixed, was?!
We would need to find more things to repair of course.
If there was no bad we would have to re-define good. That is humanity, is it not?
Humanity must constantly learn to cope or perish with heat stress and any other environmental or man made problem dished up.
That's life and evolution Dr Liz!
21 Jan 2016 6:45:51pm
I guess it will take a lot for some people to realise that the planet will look after itself even if it means getting rid of the human race, it's done it before and will do so again, humans think they are the top priorty, this generation don't give a hoot as most who don't believe in climate change will be long dead, its the young coming up who will have to live with the damage that's being created.
de Brere:
21 Jan 2016 6:47:24pm
Wow, hottest year on record. How surprising; so much so that I predicted it would be the case in late August last year, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with GHGs. In fact, it was clear then (even if not to the BoM, which was forecasting average to above average rainfall) that we were entering into a very serious el-Nino drought.
I wish they had put their money where their mouths were; I would have taken them on on that one.
21 Jan 2016 7:37:20pm
No-one is saying the current El Nino was caused by GHGs. People are saying:
The average temperature from 1850-1900 is significantly lower than the average temperature from 1965-2015. The cause of this temperature increase was massive CO2 emissions.
de Brere:
21 Jan 2016 8:32:45pm
Is this the same tonyp who claims; "The residence time of water in the atmosphere is short. Therefore water vapour cannot drive climate change" and then immediately following; "Climate change can and does however involve a concomitant feedback from changes in water vapour"?
If so, I can only say that this. Your most recent post contained at least 6 statements that defied either the laws of physics, and/or real world data and/or simple logic. On that basis alone, I am afraid that it will be difficult for me to change your pre-conceived ideas and statements; such as "The cause of this temperature increase" [1850-1900 compared to 1965-2015] was massive CO2 emissions."
21 Jan 2016 11:06:24pm
If you believe water vapour can independently drive long term climate change you should submit your proof to Nature. That is a cornerstone of atmospheric physics and climate modelling. If you kick that out a lot of arguments come crashing down.
One analogy that might help is disease propagation. Microbes with longer lifetimes when exposed to air can propagate far more effectively than microbes that die almost instantly. As a consequence many microbial diseases are intransmissible through air.
Similarly, water vapour just doesn't stay in the atmosphere long enough to maintain or cause an increase in temperature UNLESS there is an external forcing term that maintains elevated humidity. Water vapour can respond to and amplify a temperature increase but it cannot cause such a change on its own.
Let me repeat: I have no interest in your good opinion. My objective is purely to prevent the disinformation you spew from gaining traction.
Dr Who:
21 Jan 2016 11:12:38pm
Sigh... No, de Brere, those statements do not conflict.
1. If you try pumping water vapour into the atmosphere, it condenses into liquid water. That is why water vapour emissions do not appreciably influence climate change.
2. If something (eg. CO2 rises) cause temperature to go up, the SATURATION POINT of water vapour (ie. how much water vapour the atmosphere can hold before it condenses) goes up, and this allows water vapour concentration to rise. Therefore, water vapour acts as a POSITIVE FEEDBACK.
3. Nothing tonyp has written has defied the laws of physics. It is only your limited comprehension of the discipline that causes you to perceive it that way.
de Brere:
22 Jan 2016 4:27:31pm
Firstly, seeing as you hadn't noticed, large parts of the troposphere are not cloudy; ie are below their saturation point and usually well below. Try stepping outside once in a while and you may notice these things.
Secondly, given your own level of understanding of physics and capacities for logical thought, I am not surprised that you think everything tonyp has written is consistent with both.
22 Jan 2016 4:54:44pm
de Brere,
I invite you to take your theories about humidity to any Physics or Earth Sciences department on any university campus and see what reception it gets.
Alternatively you can submit your theory for publication to any number of physical journals.
Or, you can try to find a text book or a journal article in which the result is derived.
Or, you could email some atmospheric physicists and discuss it with them remotely.
Or use a phone.
Do something.
There is one person in this discussion whose position is not that adopted by the scientific main-stream and it is you, based on the argument that if A causes B then obviously B can cause A. This is simply not true. Cancer can cause death, dying does not cause cancer.
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 1:14:28pm
If you throw a ball in the air, it falls back down.
If you lift a ball in the air, it stays on your hand.
Similarly, if we try to 'throw' water vapour into the air, it'll rain out, but if we raise the equilibrium point by making it warmer, it'll stay up there.
21 Jan 2016 8:07:52pm
Dear me deBrere, are you unaware that the El Nino events are becoming hotter? For instance, 1998 was an El Nino year, and the temperature anomaly was 0.53 degrees C according to the Met Office. Also according to the Met Office, the global temperature anomaly for the 2015 El Nino year was 0.75 degrees C (a 41.5% increase!!).... In between there have been more El Nino years with increasing temperatures since the year 1998.
Please do move on from cheap shots, we are all well over that by now.
de Brere:
21 Jan 2016 8:45:29pm
Is it a "cheap shot" Alpo, if I observe that all el Nino's are not the same, and the most recent El Nino is now being seen as far stronger than the 1998 event?
Also, you might like to look at the actual data (well only slightly fiddled anyway) according to NASA GISS (search it with google) which still show that warming at the south end of the planet (even after fiddling) is still only about 1/5th the rate of warming at the north end of the planet. Or is that reference to actual data also a "cheap shot"?
21 Jan 2016 11:17:52pm
de Brere,
Please do pay attention, I told you that the El Nino events have been increasingly warmer since 1998.
You are perfectly right in saying that the Northern Hemisphere has been warming at a higher rate than the Southern Hemisphere. But surely you can work out one (perhaps the main) reason for that: The Northern Hemisphere is more industrialised than the Southern Hemisphere (there is a greater land mass with very many countries and very many people producing greenhouse gases). This is associated with a higher concentration of CO2 in the Northern Hemisphere's atmosphere, hence you would expect a stronger greenhouse effect there and therefore higher temperatures. In addition, the relatively larger amount of ocean water in the Southern Hemisphere may help absorbing heat.
Dr Who:
22 Jan 2016 10:47:14am
Hi Alpo
While there is a difference in CO2 levels, it goes hardly any way to describing the temperature differential - this comes down to the relative surface areas of land and water (and relative difference in heat capacities, and how the temperatures of land and water respond to a given quantity of extra heat), as well as circumpolar wind and air currents in the southern hemisphere impeding heat exchange between the South Pole and the warmer regions (the greenhouse effect is of course more enhanced when there is more incident radiation - ie. the tropics - but the magnitude of changes then depend on heat redistribution mechanisms).
You're incorrect in assuming de Brere can work this out. I've been trying for months to explain this to him, and I've had no success whatsoever.
22 Jan 2016 11:58:37am
Thanks for pointing out those additional factors, Dr Who. I agree that some people, like our good mate de Brere, can have some troubles grasping multi-causal phenomena.
de Brere:
22 Jan 2016 4:38:20pm
Well, Doc, I suppose I must at least thank you for correcting Alpo wrt differential CO2 levels, so thanks.
However, on your old argument (well untested theory really)concerning land/water ratio differences between north and south, it holds no water unless and until you can advance the data to support it as being the actual causal factor. Please go ahead and do so. It isn't that hard; it couldn't be seeing as I have already done it and in your oft stated view I am a dill.
So here is your challenge. You are advancing the theory. I have already tested it (long before you advanced it btw). So are your scientific capacities up to it?
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 1:19:34pm
Isn't it strange how 2015 is warmer than every single other el Nino on record - I guess it must be the strongest el Nino ever. It's the only sensible conclusion, rather than, for example, something making it warmer.
22 Jan 2016 2:13:08pm
James, the intensity of El Nino events has been increasing in concomitance with global warming. Taking El Nino and Global warming as completely independent processes is not warranted from what we know so far.
James Picone:
22 Jan 2016 4:08:13pm
As far as I know there's no demonstrated link between ENSO severity and climate change. I was just pointing out to de Brere that trying to dodge on the basis of this el Nino being very strong compared to 1998 (which is a questionable claim itself) doesn't make sense because it's warmer than every prior el Nino.
Tory Boy:
21 Jan 2016 6:54:23pm
Somehow I suspect the Yank would be having his increased electricity bills paid for by his fellow countrymen but it was nice as ever for him to volunteer our taxes.
The thing is though, Australia could switch off all carbon emitting devices tomorrow and it would make no difference to the worlds climate whatsoever. Yes, it would be a great message to send to the world and we'd set a wonderful example, but the climate wouldn't budge 1 tenth of 1 degree in either direction until China, India, and the US do something about their energy production, and Africa, Europe, and South America drastically reduce their populations.
As with every other problem we face, go to the root and the common denominator is there - too many people!
21 Jan 2016 8:09:07pm
And, of course - the individual people that make up this "too many people" are people other than you.
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:41:35pm
Quite so kate. All the more reason to question people who advocate suspending democracy and putting them in charge, and those who advocate more government control over peoples' lives.
21 Jan 2016 9:11:39pm
Yeah, well - I've had many people lecture me about how there are too many people in the joint, but I have never heard of any of them taking the early checkout option to demonstrate the courage of their convictions.
ian :
21 Jan 2016 7:03:11pm
Could someone direct me to the source data or research that confirms "optimal human physical performance is about 11C".
21 Jan 2016 7:06:01pm
We are being fed ongoing continuous irrelevant Bull.... I say irrelevant because any observation of the climate is absolutely irrelevant because anyone claiming that humans could control climate in any way is not a scientist but but a witch doctor. Anyone who ever did any Thermodynamics would have some idea about the entropy i.e an absolute chaos of variables affecting our climate. To single out one single trace gas as the key to the entire chaotic set of variables is absolutely ludicrous.
I wish the global warming alarmists from the IPCC would be honest with us and tell us the truth such as: "We are doing everything possible to scare you out of your wits, so you would volunteer to accept the energy tax which would provide and additional UN budget to the tune of 100 billion dollars." Why prostitute the science when the truth is so simple and so transparent?!
Troy T:
21 Jan 2016 7:12:27pm
Mr Morrison just reduced my and my wife's pension by $112.60 per fortnight which is more like an earthquake to my budget than the gradual global warming.
Where are your articles about the issues that matter us - the readers, such as the government relentless attacks on the Australian pensioners, rather than ongoing bombardment with pet issues of your dominant green staff?!!! ABC is supposed to be a national broadcaster catering for all Australians including pensioners, rather than be used fo political propaganda.
21 Jan 2016 7:51:34pm
And the children have no respect these days. Try convincing them that money is more important to me then them and they just walk away! Walk away! Television is worse too.
Thamos T:
21 Jan 2016 8:42:44pm
'Gr8Ape', you'll have to tell us one day how you don't care about money but live of 'hot air'. I actually teach my children about money and try to make them mentally strong enough not to fall for such naive brainwashing like AGW.
I am not sure what planet you come from if yo don't understand what $100 per fortnight means to any family, let alone a pensioners family.
Trev T:
21 Jan 2016 7:25:27pm
Melbourne had the coldest winter in the last 50 years. Not a single article about that?! We could do with few degrees of warming. Ah, when it's cold that's climate?! Only when it's hot it matters as global warming.
21 Jan 2016 8:11:03pm
No, you're dead right. If you have to wear a cardigan in the middle of July, that means that global warning does not exist. Spot on.
21 Jan 2016 7:31:35pm
"The ambient temperature for optimal human physical performance is about 11C."
Really? Is this possibly a misprint? I had always heard 21C as the optimum number. I don't think I'd function too well for long periods at the computer at 11. Could this be proof-checked? If it is correct, could a reference be supplied - I'm curious.
21 Jan 2016 8:38:05pm
Yes I agree Gryffon, this does sound a bit odd.
I also note that the number of people that live in the tropics is huge so one must assume they are thriving.
I don't disagree with the general thrust of the article however ........ we are in trouble.
21 Jan 2016 10:30:11pm
It has to do with the "optimal human physical performance" stated. I assume they have carried out experiments on athletes to find out the temperature at which they can sustain optimal performance.
Just as an aside, have you ever tried getting something done in a hurry in the tropics?
21 Jan 2016 7:36:47pm
Clearly the denialists could not wait one more day to digest the latest news on global heating . In the face of overwhelming evidence they make all sorts of silly reasons why warming is good for us . The fact is there is an average ambient temperature at which life on the planet can and has thrived . The current trend in average temperature now indicates it will be too hot to cope with ideal living conditions .
Forrest Gardener:
21 Jan 2016 8:44:56pm
Bill, I've seen the denialist word thrown about quite a lot on their ABC. Exactly who is denying exactly what?
I had a go at denying a few things above but it seems I didn't deny the right things.
To me the denialist word is just something alarmists say when they don't actually have anything of substance to say.
Prove me wrong!
21 Jan 2016 10:24:40pm
"To me the denialist word is just something alarmists say when they don't actually have anything of substance to say.
Prove me wrong!"
Easy! The Alarmist word is just something Denialists say when they don't actually have anything of substance to say.
There ya go! 100% Proof your proposition is wrong, or at least not correct.
21 Jan 2016 7:54:25pm
Tony Abbott turned the debate on climate change on it's head due to his support of the very industries who were against it for financial reasons. He actually said a carbon tax was the way to go, then back flipped so he could use it on Gillard. Abbott was no scientist and never understood the science, no matter what evidence put in front of him, he did not believe it. In such a conflicting mind he believed in Jesus, and anyone who has studied his history will tell you, proof he existed just does not stack up, but people again believe it because someone says so, no history or science required.
22 Jan 2016 3:00:36pm
The beautiful irony is that he called himself a "weather vane".
21 Jan 2016 8:18:29pm
Here we go. Yet another science based warning followed by a stampede of dinosaurs.
Jake The Snake:
21 Jan 2016 8:48:18pm
It's official. The coldest 135 years on record have all occurred in the past 150 years. The science is settled.
Nothing To See Here:
22 Jan 2016 11:55:31am
This is why it is no longer called "global warming" and is now called "climate change"....which is a huge generalization as opposed to specific " warming " which you point out as being "settled"...
21 Jan 2016 9:04:47pm
It isn't only climate change but also problems like pandemics and excessive population in poor nations, especially in africa, that we will have to deal with.
I grew up in quite a hot part of australia. Around 50 years ago it was normally 110 degrees farenheit (about 43 degrees centigrade) - in the dining room on christmas day.
January and February were usually hotter than December. The humidity was consistently extremely low, so evaporative air coolers, which only use a fan and a small water pump, worked very well. During the hottest part of a summer's day we had siestas like the mexicans.
The house was originally pise, but some bright spark had decided to pull it down and build another out of fibro and timber which was much less thermally efficient. Some in opalling towns like Coober Peddy and Lightning Ridge dug underground dwellings. Very effective.
Reducing emissions gets most of the attention, but adapting to the inevitable is unavoidable We can (and will) adapt in countries like australia, but we do need to be smarter. The third world is a different story altogether. Many will probably die.
Have a good one.
21 Jan 2016 10:45:24pm
Dr Hanna,
Perhaps rather than studying physiology, there might be more value in studying psychology, and the effects of repeatedly chanting the same thing over and over, on memory. Climate change deniers seem quite able to remember that temperatures globally stopped rising 17 years ago (no matter what year it currently is) and that Tim Flannery has a house near water, but they have completely forgotten that it's only been about a month or so since many world leaders signed a document in Paris, effectively acknowledging that the climate WAS changing, that it WAS at least partially the fault of human actions, and that something MUST be done to prevent further change.
Really this puts the deniers in a very small minority.
So why do they keep whingeing about how climate is not changing, or that it's changed before, or that humans are not responsible? Is it genetic or acquired? There's no point going on ad nauseam about it. In case you've forgotten - You've lost. The rest of the world has moved on.
22 Jan 2016 2:59:37pm
greenspider, sadly conspiracy theorists will never be shifted by the facts because they believe all facts that do not support their theory are generated by the conspirators. It is circular, self-perpetuating and ideological. No matter what their IQ's.
21 Jan 2016 10:46:59pm
FG Denialist "..a person who who refuses that a thing is not true or existant " ....cannot accept the overwhelming evidence
Happy ?
21 Jan 2016 11:03:09pm
I repeat my belief as posted previously in this forum.
I would rather believe the science that global warming is real and finding solutions is an urgent need and find that the science was wrong than not believe the science and find that it was correct.
Cleaning up our act for the benefit of the environment can only be beneficial. What is more important, the environment and our children and grand children's future or being proven right as a climate change denier?
22 Jan 2016 12:08:20pm
And if it did turn out that AGW was all a mistake, and that coal is good for humanity, would it be a bad thing to moderate our use of it and leave some for our grandchildren?
Warmists wrong - the planet will have working renewable energy sooner than needed, the air will be cleaner, and there will be some hydrocarbon resources left for future generations. Maybe they will be able to use those rich chemical cocktails to make stuff rather than just burning it.
Denialists wrong - Higher temperatures making food production and life in general more difficult, Higher sea levels destroying many of the world's great cities, more acidic oceans with who knows what effects on sea life, a major food source. Need I go on.
Even if you do believe it is all a bunch of alarmist malarkey, why would any sane person fight de-carbonising and moving to renewables?
21 Jan 2016 11:42:45pm
Every few years we get the hottest year on record, and the media just can't get enough of it. On the other hand, every year without exception (and probably every month) for the last several centuries we get a new record total population in the world. Hardly a whisper in the media about that. And yet the population explosion has to be the major underlying cause of global warming, plus many other of the world's most alarming trends.
22 Jan 2016 10:58:08am
Per head of population Australia is a world leader in CO2 emissions but our population is not increasing that rapidly.
The US has about 5% of the world's population but is responsible for 25% of CO2 emissions. So, no, over-population is not the reason for increasing CO2 emissions.
That being said, it is the combination of climate change and population growth that is really really dangerous. Addressing one is not the same as saying we shouldn't do anything about the other.
Lighting Bolt:
22 Jan 2016 11:40:41am
The population of the world has increased from 2.525 billion in 1950 to 7.243 billion now. an increase of 189%.
Australia's population increase shows a similar increase from 8.3 million in 1950 to 21.6 million now. an increase of 160%.
This is a ridiculous rate of increase and must have had a very major impact on the environment and hence a input into climate change.
Why don't the media talk about it?
Because those who hold the governmental and corporate power here and around the World don't see a problem with population growth. In fact they see it as a desirable driver of economic growth.
Money over rules everything.
22 Jan 2016 2:07:09pm
YesBut: Unless the people spouting the overpopulation theory are willing to euthanise themselves for the good of society, I don't really see the point of constantly discussing it.
Mike (the other one):
22 Jan 2016 3:31:07pm
Population in the much of the western world and some other developed countries has risen (post baby boomers) mainly by immigration. This fact is reflected in fertility rates. Even at the peak of the BB fertility rates only managed to get to about 3.6 for a very short period of time.
The problem countries/ cultures have massively increased their populations even with emigration. In some of these problem countries/ cultures fertility rates can be as high as 5, 6 and even 7.
Chubblo, check your facts before making such generalisations. WE still have choices.
Lighting Bolt, I suspect the reason the media don't want to talk about it is because from a Leftist view point it is not PC for various reasons and from the Right's (business as usual) view it does not bode well for Ponzi demographics, as you pointed out. In other words, the left feed off the right and vice versa - and the media need to wake up to this.
21 Jan 2016 11:50:40pm
why is it that the fossil fuel industry with their megabucks can't seem to find a scientist who can put up a credible argument disproving global warming. They pay CEOs millions, major shareholders have made millions and they can't find anyone. Hmm just had a thought, maybe they could find someone on this forum, but then again I did say credible so maybe not.
22 Jan 2016 12:49:54am
'2015 was the world's hottest year'
No, it wasn't. This headline is misleading. It doesn't matter that the article then goes on to say that it was the hottest year since 1880 - the headline is deliberately misleading. The Medieval Warm period (around 1000 - 1100) was warmer than today - as evidenced by extensive agriculture in southern Greenland and ENGLAND being Europe's leading wine producer (!). And then there's the PETM.
And even if 2015 was the warmest year since 1880, so what? We are still coming out of the last Ice Age, which finished c. 10000 years ago. Is it not, perhaps, reasonable to expect the climate to be warming? It isn't as warm yet as during some of the Pleistocene Interglacials. We also had the 'Little Ice Age' between 1400 and 1800 which incidentally, killed off the Vikings doing the aforementioned agriculture in Greenland. So warming is to be expected. And evidence from ice cores/ocean sediments etc. reveals that warming isn't at a constant rate, but occurs in fits and starts, and can be extremely rapid (This is NATURAL warming we're talking about here.). So the difference between 2014 and 2015 isn't necessarily unprecedented.
And that's dependent on how the data has been manipulated (sorry, 'processed'). Seems like a bit of a 'coincidence' to me that, in the year that catastrophic global warming was shown not to be occurring, suddenly new data appeared that shjowed that it was!
But ALL of this aside (including whether or not data has been 'fixed'), where is the actual PROOF that ANY of this warming is man-made. The complete inability of any climate 'models' to predict global temperatures over the past ten years just serves to illustrate that we SIMPLY DON'T UNDERSTAND how man does or doesn't have an effect on the Earth's climate. The 'models' have been consistently wrong in their predictions. And these are the same models that are continuing to be presented as 'fact' or 'settled science' by mainstream media (eg the ABC) to 'prove' that warming will continue.
One of the most basic scientific principles is that science is never 'settled'. REAL Science is based on constantly challenging the current theories, and trying to disprove them - THAT is what makes science strong. Accepting the '95%' (and that's another joke) view and bad-mouthing anyone who questions it is DEFINITELY NOT science. If that were the case, we'd still believe that atoms were indivisible solid particles, that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, that Newton's Laws were the be-all and end-all and so on. REAL Science says that you come up with a theory and an experiment/observation to prove/disprove it. The climate 'scientists' have come up with several theories (complete disappearance of icecaps by 2015 etc.) which have now been disproven by observation. So REAL Science tells us that the theory is wrong. And by extension, so is any 'modelling ' predicting future trends based on that theory.
22 Jan 2016 10:54:44am
The medieval warm period is not a global temperature excursion it is a series of regional events that are unsynchronised. Greenland and Europe are not the world.
The extinction rate during the PETM was 50% so using this as an example of how climate change is nothing to worry about is not a very good idea.
Again, the Little Ice Age is not a significant global temperature excursion, it is a series of regional events compensated by warming at low latitudes. Again, Greenland and Europe are not the world.
Expecting some warming is different from expecting warming hundreds of times faster than anything in the geological record. The PETM for instance occurred over 30,000 years. We are on track to see the same level of warming in 100 years. To assert that that is natural variability is fatuous.
Your error metrics are inappropriate for a large chaotic system with poorly constrained initial conditions.
Climate models without CO2 forcing cannot reconstruct past climate change. Climate models with CO2 forcing can.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas - which means higher CO2 levels lead to higher temperatures.
CO2 levels have risen dramatically over the past 150 years.
We can prove that that the majority of that CO2 increase is due to anthropological burning of fossil fuels.
In the same period there has been an increase in temperature whose magnitude and temporal characteristics match what would be expected from the CO2 record.
22 Jan 2016 12:04:50pm
Tonyp stop denying the medieval warm period, keep up to date with the research son.
On about your favourite PETM again. What were the extinction rates at the Permo-Triassic boundary? how about the end of the Cretaceous. And wasn't there an explosion of mammals following the PETM? You might not be here otherwise.
Can you name which climate models can actually reconstruct past climate?
And of course you realise that climate models are like all models, everybody loves them until you find out what goes into them.
22 Jan 2016 2:53:20pm
Detailed research has shown:
The average global temperature during the "MWP" was lower than it is now.
The warming events of the "MWP" are distinct geographically and temporally. They do not represent a synchronised global event.
Substantial cooling occurred in the southern hemisphere during this period.
Patricia P:
22 Jan 2016 3:18:02pm
"...CO2 is a greenhouse gas - which means higher CO2 levels lead to higher temperatures..."
Tony, I wonder if you have the capacity to comprehend how stupid this conclusion is?! In psychology it is called simple logic, mathematically expressed as: If A=B AND B=C then A must be equal to C. It works only where single variables are concerned. As soon as you have multiple variables the simple logic is used only by the real simpletons. One example would be: 'Joe is a thief. Joe is black. Therefore blacks are thieves'. Yes, Many simpletons are still using the simple logic even when with multiple of variables.
Tony, I suggest you read a bit about the entropy to learn a bit about the absolute chaos of variables influencing our climate. To use one small variable as a linear equation for the climate is worthy only a real simpleton.
Posts like yours do such harm to the scientific debate on the global warming issue.
22 Jan 2016 4:22:11pm
Interesting post. Allow me to respond in the same spirit of intellectual respect.
Let us analyse the statement:
"CO2 is a greenhouse gas - which means higher CO2 levels lead to higher temperatures"
My first point: that is not a logical statement - that is a definition. The definition of a greenhouse gas is a gas whose increased abundance in the atmosphere raises mean temperature. If you dispute this I invite you to introduce your own definition of what a greenhouse gas is.
My second point: From various external metrics which I shan't bore you with I happen to know that my grasp of logic is strong, my intellectual capacity more than adequate and my grasp of mathematics and physics very strong so while I obviously appreciate your condescension it's emphatically contradicted by reality.
My third point: Nowhere in any of my posts have I ever claimed that CO2 is the only variable involved in climate nor have I claimed that the relationship between temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration is linear.
To say that an increase in x leads to an increase in y simply requires dy/dx > 0 which is true for instance of positive exponentials, logarithmic functions, any polynomial with positive coefficients and exponents and an uncountable number of other arbitrary functions.
Given its brevity, the level of mathematical ignorance, intellectual dishonesty and fatuous nonsense in your post is impressive.
Keep up the good work.
22 Jan 2016 10:45:03am
You only have to read the comments above to become convince that we're (as a species) stuffed, and we deserve to be.
Me of wherever:
22 Jan 2016 10:52:50am
There is no such ting as climate change from John Howard up to to day the Liberal politicians have told us "no climate change" well you must believe them because they are so honest. We have seen their honesty haven't we so you should take note and be happy little vegemite's and get on with your lives!
Harvey Wireman:
22 Jan 2016 10:53:09am
NASA and NOAA, the US agencies who monitor satellites, weather stations etc, and report on these temperatures have been politicized to the point that they simply cannot be trusted to issue reliable data at this time.
Since president Obama has signed on to this hoax and fraud in Paris recently , the agencies under his corrupt administration deliver whatever is required to keep the global warming narrative going. It has been proven in the past that the data has been fudged by NOAA, and this is no different.
Now you might begin to understand why Donald Trump is so popular. The level of distrust, and contempt for the incompetence and divisiveness of this government is at an all time high. That's more than we can say about these dodgy temperature reports.
22 Jan 2016 2:10:59pm
So the Russians, the Japanese, the British, the Chinese and the Europeans are producing different data? Or are they all politicised too?
Lighting Bolt:
22 Jan 2016 11:14:24am
I have to laugh when the weather person on the TV news reports the weather along the lines of: " hot and dry weather very good; we can all go to the beach" or " Cold and wet weather very bad; we can't go to the beach".
Over to the main news reader who reports that "climate change very bad; it causes hot dry weather"
Oh well at least we can all go to the beach.
billy fish killer :
22 Jan 2016 11:31:36am
Doesn't feel like a specially hot summer were I live if anything feels to be a cool summer so far. last year our fishing club did not get a comp happening until Easter because the summer was so mild which ment strong wind no safe boating .
Jerry Attrick:
22 Jan 2016 11:45:44am
As I begin writing this, there are 327 posts listed for the conversation.
After reading the first couple of dozen, it is clear that only a very low percentage contain any content that meaningfully refers to the topic. I wish to break this absurd waste of time and print.
With 2015 listed as the hottest on record, after 2014 was also the hottest on record and the imaginary "pause" in temperature rise over the past 18 years has been well and truly debunked, the time-wasting anti-climate-change fanatics really should be reconsidering their conclusions.
If unprecedented floods and fires won't convince these fairy-tale-believing scaredy cats that something is really changing, it could be suggested that their opinions fit into one of the categories of a) intellectually incapable, b) emotionally driven denial of the facts, or c) mindless faith that some sky-fairy will save them and their families while allowing others to be incinerated, slowly broiled, or drowned.
Now is the time guys, if you believe your denialist claims, to put up or shut up. If you have nothing factual or evidence-based to support your pointless sniping and ridicule, instead of being a drain on political will, join in the process of convincing our current, sloppy, inactive government that thermal coal has had its day and it's time for us to say "thanks, and farewell". Ask them to explain how the 50% bleached Barrier Reef is not being killed by oil-spilling traffic and industrial effluents. Ask what actions will be taken to avoid more of the floods and fires that have plagued Australia in the past few years. Just mopping up or rebuilding won't cut it. It's time for Australia to get with the smart money and start looking at what we can do to prevent this from getting worse, rather than just bleating ridicule at the people who are already supporting action that might - MIGHT - help our kids and grandkids to avoid a catastrophe-plagued future. And for those who rely on the "we are only a tiny percentage" cop-out, I suggest that showing some conviction in our wish to help is much more likely to activate more polluting societies to join the effort. Those with real-world experience (or exceptionally high IQs) might even be able to offer practical solutions for the very poor nations that are currently a big part of the problem. Helping them clean up their industries and societies might help even more than cleaning up our own act.
Horrocks :
22 Jan 2016 12:11:32pm
I wonder if the fact that a large part of Australia is desert or semi arid has anything to do with the higher average higher temperature or would that be an inconvenient truth
22 Jan 2016 12:46:43pm
Happy to be called an alarmist.
What rational person with a concern for the welfare of their fellow human beings present and future would not be alarmed by the vast body of evidence presented by decent, capable and credible climate scientists?
Rather than engage in futile debate with deniers it would be more productive to examine the psychology of denial in the face of overwhelming evidence.
The choice for denial appears to be between stupidity and greed although there are clearly some who engage in mischievous attention seeking for the sake of argument.
Mike (the other one):
22 Jan 2016 12:50:33pm
This ties in nicely with the other Drum article yesterday - 'Refugee crisis: Has Germany's compassion moment proved to be naive?' (yes, by the way).
Problems in the ME are undoubtedly compounded by massive population growth (doubled in the last 30 years or so). So what was our answer (well, Germany's at least) to that? To encourage them no less. Spread and breed seems to be the reaction to environmental problems (social and ecological) by human beings rather than addressing the real issues.
There's massive other undeniable environmental problems including desertification, even if there are still AGW sceptics.
When will our leaders develop some insight, foresight and then action if only to, at the very least, start the debate?
22 Jan 2016 1:48:00pm
The worldwide average warming will likely pass 2 deg as early as the 2040s, but that is nothing compared to warming at the extreme end of the scale, especially at the poles where some parts of the Arctic had already passed the 2deg mark before 2000.
Research by ETH Zurich and the Uni of New South Wales published in Nature journal found that some parts of the planet will warm by as much as 6 degrees due to such regional variations.
But we see the denial lobby and their fans once again trying to muddy the argument, pointing to flawed satellite data as further "evidence" of their beloved "pause"
No sane argument can deny the planet continues warm at an alarming rate.
22 Jan 2016 3:34:30pm
Science does not prove anything
If you want proof go to the maths department
From the world bank -CO2 emissions, metric tons per capita
Australia 16.5
Austria 7.8
Belgium 8.8
Finland 10.2
Germany 8.9
Italy 6.7
Norway 9.2
Switzerland 4.6
Greg Hunt made sure we kept to being one of the worst polluters by abolishing the Climate Commission and sacking Australian of the Year Prof T Flannery
In a country where it is raining photons every day we should be ashamed, even angry
And if we don't get angry our grandchildren certainly will
Mike (the other one):
22 Jan 2016 4:07:40pm
I am not criticizing your post but surely the immense distances that need to be covered in Australia compared to Europe have a large bearing on these figures. If so then this is another good reason to not overpopulate.
Mike (the other one):
22 Jan 2016 1:56:58pm
Address the REAL cause of AGW and we will solve a lot of other problems.
I've heard a couple of stories about animal cruelty in Australia in the last few days and how disgusted and outraged people were, the consequences of which involved the RSPCA and police charges.
How does this mentality compare to the hundreds of thousands of hectares of land clearing that goes on to make way for more human beings? To reiterate the point; habitat clearing equals a slow miserable death for millions of animals and if AGW theory is correct we add to that as well. But here we are making a federal story out one idiot who bit off a live rat's head which went viral on media. The rat was probably a feral species anyway - which of course is another problem.
Disgust and outrage? What's the biggest feral species on the planet?
It's simply amazing how the collective can point an accusing finger at an indivual while the collective are committing the very same atrocities in spades.
Consider this:
22 Jan 2016 3:12:56pm
Hmm lets see the problem with Temperature data and how the information is "fed" to the media:
Firstly the headline of this article is a blatant LIE
1: because we know from geological records that the earth has been warmer, MUCH warmer during previous periods.
2: we know from early T records from Sydney that heatwaves both longer and more intense have been experienced in the 1800's
3: we also know that the earth's climate varies from killer cold to killer hot and both us and nature have adapted bit socially and geographically previously
Secondly when someone says hotter they have to compare it to historical records but here's the recent history of temperature records:
1: pre digital records (i.e. pre 1970) were recorded by pen and paper on un-calibrated equipment by untrained people in the back of police stations and post offices and posted at some time or another to a university somewhere to be again recorded on paper by hand!
2: those actual records have been lost! No, not the computer massaged ones provided by meteorological bureaus; the actual RAW unaltered data has been "lost" and can never be re-examined; so we actually dont know what the recent T records are!
3: what records there are are sparse and incomplete and mostly relevant to the northern hemisphere where western democracies sponsored science!
Thirdly in the period of digital recording:
1: the actual RAW data are now considered state secrets and are not to be released, we are only provided with the computer massaged data by meteorological organisations.
2: the vast majority of land based temperature stations are in urban areas surrounded by motors, engines, air conditioners, machinery and other human activities: they will always show a warming trend
3: Satellite and SST data do not support these claims
But as yet another non (physical) scientist comments about climate change on the ABC and who clearly doesn't understand the difference between climate and weather. But the truth and facts dont matter because its all about the harem scarem agenda!
22 Jan 2016 3:57:31pm
Why should Australians worry? If you care to stop and look around you will see ample evidence. You don't need to be an academic, a denialist or a believer to see the damage created by human activity. Our response - do more of the same. That's why we should worry.
I remember:
22 Jan 2016 4:17:12pm
I remember growing up in Sydney in the 50's and 60's when the temperature never got 20 deg, there was never a heat wave, there were no droughts or floods, no storms or cyclones, no water shortages and the dams were always full. As a matter of fact we told we heading for another ice age. Then along came the warmists and ruined everything.
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