Heidi Cullen at Climate Central covers the highlights of NOAA’s State of the Climate: 2009 report, released yesterday (NOAA press release here). Key message: ten of the most important climate indicators, with multiple datasets for each, show that the planet is warming.
It’s worth digging around at the NOAA site linked above — there are animated graphics of all the key datasets (such as sea surface temperature), and NOAA’s new ClimateWatch site also has some nifty graphics — a climate data dashboard — to play with.
The full report is a 110MB download (here) and covers 2009′s climate and weather events in detail, but there’s a 10 page summary for the impatient here. More coverage at Skeptical Science and the Guardian.
Gerry Brownlee’s draft energy strategy for New Zealand is an interesting read, but not perhaps in the way the government intended. As Bryan discussed in his comment on the strategy, Brownlee puts mining and drilling up front and centre, and relegates environmental and carbon issues to a definite second place in government priorities. You might infer from the document that this is a “strategy” that has been designed to fit with what the government wants to do, rather than what is actually necessary. But what struck me most forcefully was the apparent lack of any well-thought out or detailed context for the strategy. Let’s see if we can supply some, and see where that leads us…
The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (PDF, web) is a winding back of the clock from the substantial statement released under the previous government only three years ago. When announcing early in his term as Minister that a new strategy was required Gerry Brownlee complained of the old one:
“You need only read the foreword of the NZES…‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable’ are mentioned thirteen times, ‘greenhouse gas’ is mentioned four times, and ‘climate change’ is mentioned three times. That is all very good, but security of supply rates only one mention. Affordability is not touched on at all. Nor is economic growth.”
They present a picture of governmental processes captured by powerful groups pursuing their own interests at the expense of the rest of the community. Large industry and agriculture have won for themselves exemptions and delays of such an order as to make significant emissions reduction impossible in the first commitment period (CP1) of the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time the costs have been loaded disproportionately on to households and small industry. Those responsible for 30% of emissions will carry 90% of the cost. Agriculture with 49% of emissions will pay 3% of the costs.
In the face of the utterly depressing final confirmation that the proposed energy bill has been abandoned in the US Senate in the face of Republican opposition, and the realisation that Obama has let the opportunity die without a fight, as Joe Romm puts it, I cast around for something cheering this morning. I found it in an interesting article on Chris Goodall’s website Carbon Commentary. The article describes the world’s first molten salts Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant. It’s not the first to use molten salts, in that many of the newer CSP plants use molten salts storage to extend the plant’s daily operating hours, but it is the first to use molten salts not just to store heat but also to collect it from the sun in the first place. Normally, pressurised oil which heats up to around 390 degrees is used to collect the heat. [now read on…]
Changes in climate extremes — the heavy weather — are where society will take “the big hits” of climate change, as I discussed last month. I will therefore need to arrange to be in Wellington (no stranger to weather extremes, it has to be said) for the joint MetSoc (Meteorological Society of NZ) and AMOS (Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society) conference, Extreme Weather 2011 at Te Papa from February 9 – 11. The meeting will include six special sessions each with a keynote address:
Extreme weather in the Australasian region – from floods to droughts
Impact and meteorology of the main climate drivers (ENSO, SAM, Monsoon)
Using high resolution models to understand local meteorology
Oceanography of the Australasian region
Climate change in the Australasian region
Riskscape – Impact of weather on disaster planning in the Australasian region
A good excuse to visit the capital in summer, perhaps? It’ll be windy…
[Disclosure: I'm the least-qualified member of the MetSoc committee.]
“How long can these people go on talking about the future as if climate change isn’t going to be part of it, let alone a determining factor?“ That is a question I often enough exasperatedly mutter to myself when listening to politicians or a variety of policy experts discussing the shape of the future with [...]
Stephen Schneider, one of the world’s most highly regarded and influential climate scientists, died today aged 65. The climate science community has responded with some heartfelt tributes. Real Climate carries a eulogy from Ben Santer which expresses the feelings of Schneider’s colleagues and the recognition he deserves for his understanding, his courage and his concern [...]
Apparently there’s too much preaching going on from climate scientists. That’s the message from the UK’s new climate change minister, Greg Barker. Of all the things the minister might have found to say this is surely one of the silliest. Reuter’s report found its way into the Waikato Times and disturbed my evening equilibrium. Extraordinarily, [...]
Potty peer Christopher Monckton has stepped up his campaign to shut down John Abraham’s debunking of one of his talks last year, by asking supporters to flood Abraham’s university with emails demanding it start a disciplinary inquiry. George Monbiot points out the obvious irony in the Guardian today: Reading these ravings, I’m struck by two [...]
Hot Topic, the first popular science book to examine global warming from a New Zealand perspective, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of NZ's first ever Science Book Prize. The judges described it as "timely, lucid, and very readable".
"If I had the money I would send one to every local and national politician and to all congregation clergy. I got mine from the local library."Rev Bob Scott.
The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (
In the face of the utterly depressing final 
