Warming 'inevitable' in Australia

The most comprehensive assessment of climate change in Australia has predicted the country could be 5 degrees Celsius hotter and 40 to 80 per cent drier by 2070.

The findings, released at the Greenhouse 2007 Conference in Sydney, indicate it is too late to avoid even hotter and drier conditions.

The joint assessment, Climate Change in Australia, says says cities like Adelaide, Perth and Darwin will see a significant increase in the number of days per year above 35 degrees by 2030.

It forecasts average temperatures will have risen by 1 degree by then from 1990 averages.

Later this century, warming of between 1 and 2.5 degrees is expected if greenhouse gas emissions are kept low, but a higher greenhouse gas emissions scenario could bring warming of as much as 5 degrees by 2070.

The study also foresees more frequent days of extreme high temperatures and reduced rainfall across the country due to higher greenhouse gas levels.

It says eastern Australia will face 40 per cent more drought months by 2070, while south-western Australia will face 80 per cent more drought months.

The assessment has found average temperatures in Australia have increased, the surrounding oceans have warmed and sea levels have risen since 1950.

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Gus: as people try to keep cool with more air conditioning to beat the rise, the problem can only get worse... as mentioned on this site before, my personal mathematical estimates told me that 1996 was the year of no return — the year at which zero emission had to be achieved to keep global warming under 2 degrees by 2100. Presently, by 2032 (see line of blogs, especially 2032 at the end and cartoon at the beginning) the massive primary extent of global warming should be felt as the average sea temperature will pass the minimum volume in relation to heat thus the whole sea will start to expand. By 2032, the major conduction of air masses (those creating fronts, lows and high pressure systems and the trade winds) will have shifted, and ice caps, especially in the northern hemisphere will be in trouble. The new study is bang on my early 1994 calculations (results expressed in earlier articles here and based on the past eons equivalent of photosynthesis/decomposition/transformation of organic matter into the oil and coal we consume per year) which predict a 6 degree rise by year 2100. So far not a single world leader has comprehended the tragedy facing us. Alarmist? Sure, I am and have to be...

In my calculations, the 6 degree rise would have to be split as a 9 degree increase at the poles, a six degree increase in temperate regions and a 3.5 degree increase in equatorial regions. I hope we are all wrong...

And please, do not think that going nuclear is the option... The problems generated — although presently relatively massive in waste and dollars for production and clean up — are still in infancy compared to what could come from it...

The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.

Climate change will affect security, scientist warns

A former CSIRO scientist and academic is warning that climate change will create serious issues for national security.

Dr Graham Pearman has raised concerns about water shortages, energy use and rising sea levels at the annual homeland security summit in Canberra.

Dr Pearman says now that the science allows us to anticipate what will happen, action is needed to prevent a human disaster.

"Maybe hundreds-of-millions of people being exposed to drought and this can have an impact both on their political stability, on their propensity to actually migrate and move, their capacity to feed themselves," he said.

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Gus: "Waterworld" wars?

Expert studies of the Earth's geology — not those erroneous extrapolations of creationist cretinism — tell us of the climatology in the various aeons and periods, since about 4.5 billion ago. Climate, geography and geology are all linked in their influence on sea levels, abundance and speciation of life as well as the formation of ice on the poles. There were times when an ice sheet took a large part of Gondwana polar position, but there were time when there was no ice...

Up to 570 million years ago the only life on earth was "cryptozoic". Basically unicellular animals and "plants" or colonies of unicellular animals and "plants"... Up to 400 million years ago, life only existed in the sea.

Devonian (408-360 Million years ago) barrier reef remnants in the Kimberleys tell us of times when that region of Australia was under the sea — either the sea level being higher, the continent being lower or a combination of both — but most likely with sea level being "higher" than it is presently.

About 140 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cretaceous period, "Australia", still a part of the super continent Gondwana was in a different position as it is today... The location of Sydney was around 75 degrees south while Perth's location was about 45 degrees south... Accurate Palaeogeographical maps tell us so. Why? How? Very complex scientific independent studies, the dating of rocks and the precise analysis of fossils for many years and on all continents have converged with uncanny precision to pinpoint the past.

We know that Australia as a continental plate is moving north at a speed of 7 centimetre per year. Quite fast for a big lump of rock, but not as fast as the sub-continent India that moved northward from "the south pole region" at about twice or thrice that speed. The movement of the Australian plate is creating many of the earthquakes in the world, I would suggest more than 60 per cent worldwide — all those in our region, right through to Japan.

Thus about 140 million years ago, half of "Australia" was under water. Mild to warm climatic conditions in the Jurassic had led to this situation. Although it is difficult for a layman to know exactly the levels of the oceans, it is most likely to have been more than 75 metres (200 feet) above present sea levels.

Before the last melt of the last ice age (only 12,000 years ago), it is most likely the sea level was more than 75 metres below what is is now... (some specific studies place it as 200 metres below present sea level).

Life, geographic position of continents (due to the molten strong undercurrents below the crust) and cosmological forces such as solar wind create changes in the weather patterns which in turn create changes in the viability of the planet, reducing the survival of some species while fostering the survival and expansion of others. But life itself can change the weather patterns as noted in the Carboniferous Period and others — including now. The carbon cycle, one of the master of the weather, is strongly related to life and the atmosphere... Changes in one can induce changes in the other. Any one doubting climate change is a fool... It is happening. And in terms of geological time, climate change is presently happening at warp speed. If this does not worry you, there is nothing I can do for you but should you be worried, vote Howard and his porkie men out of office. Everything he says and does in this area is lip service and a useless rain-dance...

So, kick Howard out. That would make me feel better. He's done enough damage. At least the Labor Party is prepared to sign the Kyoto protocol and subsequent protocols. A small but necessary step to achieve worldwide concensus...

These times are our most important since the beginning of humanity. Big words, but true.

Record 22C temperatures in Arctic heatwave By Steve Connor, Science Editor Published: 03 October 2007

Parts of the Arctic have experienced an unprecedented heatwave this summer, with one research station in the Canadian High Arctic recording temperatures above 20C, about 15C higher than the long-term average. The high temperatures were accompanied by a dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice in September to the lowest levels ever recorded, a further indication of how sensitive this region of the world is to global warming. Scientists from Queen's University in Ontario watched with amazement as their thermometers touched 22C during their July field expedition at the High Arctic camp on Melville Island, usually one of the coldest places in North America.

"This was exceptional for a place where the normal average temperatures are about 5C. This year we frequently recorded daytime temperatures of between 10C and 15C and on some days it went as high as 22C," said Scott Lamoureux, a professor of geography at Queen's.

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see blog above... see also

From the air, the evidence of climate change is striking

We're hot stuff, thanks to Japan

Richard Macey
October 9, 2007

AUSTRALIA owes its image as a sunny, surf-loving nation to Japan, scientists have found.

If it had not been for the land of the rising sun, Australia would now be a chilly, windswept land better suited for snow skiing than swimming.

More than 100 million years ago the constant shifting of the Earth's tectonic plates, on which its land masses ride, caused Australia to break away from Antarctica. Today Australia is moving north by about seven centimetres a year [Gus: see my blog above: Climate change].

However, a team of researchers headed by the University of Sydney's school of geosciences has discovered that Australia made a sudden, dramatic and previously unknown course change 50 million years ago.

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Gus: wrong. Under the plate tectonic theory it has been known for many years that the Australian plate took off northward about 45 million years ago (breaking up from Antarctica started about 50 million years ago... (see blog two-above this one: Climate Change)... What could be new is that Japan had been responsible for the shift... But even in my blog Climate Change, I state "The movement of the Australian plate is creating many of the earthquakes in the world, I would suggest more than 60 per cent worldwide — all those in our region, right through to Japan." Why is the plate moving northward? Unless one goes about 350 kilometre deep and study the molten currents below the crust one can only theorise about it. Although there are indicators that can suggest a hint — but not a certainty... What should be of importance is that not one sea-floor is older than 150 million years or so, while most continents carry bits as old as 4.5 billion years... Most sea floor also carry the imprint of polar shift: every so many thousands of years, a shift in the earth magnetic polarity appears — reversing magnetic north to south, etc...

On another point of interest, why then did India shoot north from a neighbourly position, as well about 40 million years before Aussieland... ? Why did Gondwana break up? Why did Pangea break up?

Climate crisis 'diabolical'

July 4, 2008 - 4:30PM

An effective response to climate change must take shape and be in place in the next few years, the federal government's top climate change adviser says.

Professor Ross Garnaut 600-page draft report on climate change, of which the make-up of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) is a major focus, was released today.

Speaking at the report's launch in Canberra, Prof Garnaut said climate change was a "diabolical'' policy problem.

"While an effective response to the challenge would play out over the many decades, it must take shape and be in place over the next few years,'' he said.

"Without early and strong action, some time before 2020 we will realise we have indelibly surrendered to forces that have moved beyond our control.''

Prof Garnaut said climate change was the hardest policy problem in living memory.

"Climate change presents a new kind of challenge,'' he said.

"It is uncertain in its form and extent, rather than drawn in clear lines.

"It is insidious, rather than directly confrontational.

"It is long term, rather than immediate in both its impacts and its remedies.''
Remedies will require global co-operation of unprecedented complexity and dimension, he said.

"We have much to contribute and much to lose as we face the diabolical policy challenge of climate change,'' Prof Garnaut said.

He said: "The most inappropriate response would be to delude ourselves, taking small actions that create an appearance of action, but which do not solve the problem.

"Such an approach would risk the integrity of our market economy and political processes to no good effect."

The report says Australia would be deluding itself if it used scientific uncertainties as a cause for delay.

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Gus: From GLOBAL WARMING IS BALONEY

In one of my earlier posts on global warming I was referring to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean around it acting like a fridge. Now there is more evidence that it does... Global warming thus is baloney... what we should urgently recognise is Global Hotting... It is difficult to know anything apart from the “minute

Unfortunately the rest of my blog disappeared when switching service provider... I have been trying for a while to source the original on my computer but the original computer on which I compose the article went kaput and the article is swimming somewhere on one of my "thousands" of back up discs... But the gist was there. In 1994 I made some calculations based on some reasonably sharp estimates in regard to past eons including the Cretaceous period and the prognostic did not look any good: 1996 was the point of no return at which there was bugger all we could do to stop an increase of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius on the planet but should we do nothing the increase would be at least 6 degrees as spread: 12 degrees at the poles, 6 degrees at temperate latitudes and 3 degrees in the equatorial regions. In fact should we do nothing worthwhile and keep burning oil and coal, increase at the poles could go as high as 30 degrees by 2150.

By then I have expressed:

We have to stop burning fossil fuels (zero- ziltch - nada - nothing)

We have to consume half as much energy as we did back in 1996

We have to arrest population growth

We have to reshape all our economic factors as not to kill ourselves by changing from a greedy expansionist capitalism system to a sustainable non-growth change consolidation system. Call it sustainism if you will or whatever but Garnaut is right... too right...

We have to instill flexibility into a straight jacket. The big energy and resources suppliers need to awaken to their duty on this issue, not just government and people. It is a global issue.

see toon at top and others peppered on this site on this subject... 

For the first eight years of the channel's life, its coverage of environmental issues was broad, diverse and often stimulating. It broadcast 20 programmes a year in its Fragile Earth slot. But two years after Michael Grade became chief executive, in 1987, its programming began to change. The trend continued after he left.

In 1990, Channel 4 screened a documentary called The Greenhouse Conspiracy, directed by Hilary Lawson at the company TVF. It maintained that "there is no evidence at all" for dangerous climate change. There is a conspiracy among scientists, it said, to talk up the dangers in order to win funding. No reasonable person would dispute that Channel 4 should show countervailing views, or would claim that it has an obligation to take an environmentalist line. But there were three problems with this programme, which appear to characterise several of the channel's films about the environment.

The first is that it was billed as a science documentary, rather than a one-sided polemic. It had an anonymous and authoritative voiceover, rather than the onscreen presenter you would expect to see in a polemical film. It presented as hard fact statements that were extremely contentious and often plain wrong. The second is that contributors' commercial interests were not mentioned. The third problem is that though the majority of scientific opinion was at odds with the line the programme took, the opposing point of view was scarcely represented. The contribution of a very eminent climate scientist was edited to make him seem like an inconsistent crank, while maverick outsiders were presented as the voices of scientific orthodoxy.

But this film became a template for the channel's environmental coverage over much of the following 17 years. Its most prominent films about the environment screened in this period took the same line as The Greenhouse Conspiracy, which created the impression that environmental problems do not exist and that environmental scientists are mendacious fanatics.

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read more of George Monbiot at the Guardian. see toon and blogs here about this subject