Tuesday 31st of December 2024

fluffus....

fluffus

Fluffus clouds passing low through the city of Sydney, like "fog" patches. Unlike fog though, fluffus clouds are low altitude dependant, are not at ground level and are not dispersed by windy conditions. Picture by Gus Leonisky

 

It's more than time for climate denialists to admit that the surface of the planet is warming up, despite a few snowflakes presently falling in some parts of Japan... The temperature in Moscow is around 9 degrees Celsius above January-average though it could (or not) become bitterly cold tomorrow with minus 30 or so... Let's see.


New types of clouds have appeared in our Sydney skies. Gus calls these "Fluffus". Fluffus are a type of fractus cloud. Fractus clouds are unshaped cloudy water vapour about to turn into either cumulus or stratus, often seen below stratus... But fluffus stay fluffus all day long or disappear as the temperature goes up. They often stream silently across during the night pushed by a very thin layer of wind about 100 metres above ground... Fluffus are unshaped non-transparent water vapour puffs at low level in the atmosphere, mostly under a clear sky. The clear sky is due to the atmosphere above not being saturated despite higher water vapour content than average. 
I believe the measurement of dew points at various altitude levels above "fluffus" would indicate a warmer temperature than average. Science would soon tell us that CO2 is part of this process. 
Add a tiny amount of detergent in a bowl of water and the "normal" surface tension of water disappear (this characteristic can be used to catch fruit flies: add vinegar to water and a dollop of detergent in a bowl and Bob's your uncle. The flies are attracted by the vinegar, but the detergented water has no "surface tension" and the flies sink. Without detergent in the water, most insects, including fruit flies can "walk" on the surface as if it was concrete). 
Add a tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and it changes the dew point significantly enough. 
The dew point is the water condensation level resultant from the combination of pressure, concentration of water vapour (humidity) and temperature in the atmosphere.
CO2 does not add to pressure nor the humidity (except indirectly) but slightly raises the temperature level at which water vapour becomes "cloudy". In return this increase of temperature can often increase the level of water evaporation, itself leading to formation of cloudy vapour (or not). The higher the temperature, the more water vapour the atmosphere can contain without turning it into clouds. In this case we often end up with clear skies, with a higher than average temperature level and a higher humidity. For example Sydney today at 11:43 is presently 28.6 degrees Celsius (about 2.5 degrees Celsius above average) with a 66 per cent humidity making it "feel Like" 31.2. There were "fluffus" coming from the North-East earlier in the day. They soon vanished under the extra heat. Blue skies. The minimum overnight temperatures have already been 4 degrees Celsius above average and the maximum daytime temperature has been staying at least 2 degrees Celsius above long term average. 
And it's not going to cool down. 
It's likely that not a single day of January in this year of grace 2015, will reach below long term average. This "anomaly" is likely to continue through February, March, April... Etc. You know your months of the year from your old 2014 Leunig calendar (an announcement was made on Leunig's website: “Fairfax have decided not to produce a Leunig calendar for 2015..." but they did one anyway   http://www.theageshop.com.au/leunig2015) . 
Further south, South Australia and Victoria are presently experiencing the horrendous conditions in which bush-fires are born: strong winds, high temperature (above 40) and low humidity — all under clear skies. So far several houses have burned and the prognosis is grim, even for Tasmania, yet again...We all remember these pictures of a family huddled together in water under a jetty when a glowing-red bush-fire was passing through above. 
Our Primal Minster Tony Abbott, like most (99.99 %) Liberals (CONservatives) is a climate denialist (mostly fantasist) so he can help his mates — the carbon diggers/burners. Or whateverers. "Coal is the future of humanity" says Tony without blinking. He means it or we are supposed to believe he means it... He could not care less.
One Gus could say Tony is an idiot but far from it (though I could mean it). He is a liar with the conscience of a thief. Tony Abbott is a deliberate scientific ignoramus. His "direct action plan" to mitigate "global warming" (which he does not "believe" in) is seriously designed to pay back, under the cover of a climate scheme, to his mates — the carbon dioxide producers especially in the energy sector — all the penalties they were "punished" with (for good reasons) by Labor's Carbon Pricing policy — which worked well to reduce Australia's emission of CO2 — despite claims to the contrary by Tony's henchmen... Idiots and deliberate ignoramuses.
So what could make Tony Abbott revert to a Carbon pricing policy and admit he was wrong on this subject?... Well, not even his own house burning down in a firestorm, not even a new average of four degrees Celsius above the present and not even a record of high temperature in Sydney going from 45.8 to 49 degrees Celsius would help him change his mind. He is determined to be an ignorant git. He wants to burn the planet down with coal because Australia has plenty of it. But as Joe Hockey should realise, the more coal you sell in a limited market, the faster the price falls... Tony's "government" (silly regime) literature puts climate change at "climate variability". No sir, you are an idiot, an liar and a thief. An idiot. There I can't stop myself saying it...
Global warming is real. Present global warming is the direct resultant of humans burning fossil fuels. The present global warming is racing at warp speed compared to previous climate change on this planet.
Don't be a silly dork, Tony. Go away. shoo...

 

sea temperature information froze in august 2014...

I am annoyed that the CSIRO, a public owned entity, is now super-secretive about its sciences... For "amateurs" (professional without a degree nor employment — scientist/mathematician/observator) like me, it is a disgrace.  


For example, until some time last year (2014), one could access the CSIRO sea temperature maps calculated within six days of present time. Now these are "restricted Access Areas" only available to "subscribers" who pay a premium 108.50 dollars per WEEK (reducible by 20 % with long term contract). 
I guess that this has been done under instruction from the present Abbott regime to stop people like me getting information — and to keep the general public in the dark. 
It's not good enough. Not even the "Climate Council" could pay that sort of money for analysis. It's a scandal... The CSIRO belongs to us. Ah yes, I know, Turdy Tony does not believe in sciences... but then he will find crooked means to pay for evangelicals roaming through the public school system...
Effing idiot...
Last sea temperature map made "public" by the CSIRO:
sea temp

 

It would be silly to minimise the size of the problem...

 

Sir David Attenborough is calling on global leaders to step-up their actions to curb climate change, saying that they are in denial about the dangers it poses despite the overwhelming evidence about its risks.

The TV naturalist said those who wield power need to use it: “Wherever you look there are huge risks. The awful thing is that people in authority and power deny that, when the evidence is overwhelming and they deny it because it’s easier to deny it – much easier to deny it’s a problem and say ‘we don’t care’,” Sir David said.

In terms of climate change, “we won’t do enough and no one can do enough, because it’s a very major, serious problem facing humanity; but at the same time it would be silly to minimise the size of the problem,” he told Sky News.

Later this year a crucial UN climate summit will be held, at which world leaders have pledged to agree to tough cuts in their carbon emission....

read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/david-attenborough-leaders-are-in-denial-about-climate-change-9953302.html

 

 

If climate change was a liability for Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2014 – witness how it dogged his visit to the United States and then dominated G20 coverage after President Barack Obama's "Save the Reef" speech – there are many reasons to think it will be an even bigger issue in 2015.

By the end of this year, almost 200 nations will gather in Paris to negotiate a global treaty aimed at keeping temperature increases to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial times (versus about a 1-degree increase so far). Each meeting in the run-up will scrutinise pledges, including Australia's, for cutting greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020.

Pope Francis will weigh in too, issuing the first-ever Vatican teachings to the world's 1.2 billion Catholics to act on climate change. He is also expected to bring together other religious leaders for a summit ahead of the Paris gathering. 

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/heat-is-on-abbott-government-over-climate-change-as-world-turns-20150102-12ghrj.html

 

--------------------------

 

El Nino is starting take a grip

 

See also: http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/be-prepared-climate-change-and-the-victorian-bushfire-threat

 

stupid liberal (CONservative) WA government...

 

One of Australia’s largest resource projects is operating without regulatory oversight on its carbon emissions because the West Australian government decided against reintroducing state controls that were lifted during the carbon tax era.

Wheatstone, Chevron’s $30bn liquid natural gas project in the Pilbara, was one of two projects that applied in 2012 for an exemption to state-based emissions regulation in response to a policy that allowed the environment minister to extinguish regulations that were “non-complementary” to a federal scheme.

The other project was the West Angelas open-cut iron ore mine near Newman, in which Rio Tinto owns a controlling interest.

The state’s environment minister at the time, Bill Marmion, scrapped the requirement for both projects to have a greenhouse gas abatement plan that included setting targets and recording emissions.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jan/04/west-australian-30bn-lng-project-allowed-no-carbon-emission-targets

 

Leaking wells...

The methane that leaks from 40,000 gas wells near the desert trading post of Cuba, New Mexico, may be colourless and odourless, but it’s not invisible. It can be seen from space.

Satellites that sweep over the north of the energy-rich state can spot the gas as it escapes from drilling rigs, compressors and a pipeline snaking across the badlands. In the air it forms a giant plume: a permanent methane cloud, so vast that scientists questioned their own data when they first studied it three years ago. “We couldn’t be sure that the signal was real,” said Nasa researcher Christian Frankenberg.

The United States’ biggest methane “hot spot”, verified by Nasa and University of Michigan scientists in October, is only the most dramatic example of what scientists describe as a $2bn leak problem: the loss of methane from energy production sites across the country. When oil, gas or coal are taken from the ground, a little methane – the main ingredient in natural gas – often escapes along with it, drifting into the atmosphere where it contributes to the warming of the Earth.

Advertisement

Methane accounts for about 9% of US greenhouse gas emissions, and the biggest single source of it – nearly 30% – is the oil and gas industry, US government figures show. All told, oil and gas producers lose 8m metric tons of methane a year, enough to provide power to every household in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

As early as this month, the Obama administration will announce new measures to shrink New Mexico’s methane cloud while cracking down nationally on a phenomenon that officials say wastes taxpayer revenue and contributes to climate change. The details are not publicly known, but already a fight is shaping up between the White House and industry supporters in Congress over how intrusive the restrictions will be.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/04/leaking-methane-gas-plume-us