Global warming and the future of New Zealand
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From Cambridge University: the director of the Scott Polar Research Centre, Prof Julian Dowdeswell talks about his job. He has to visit Greenland and Antarctica to measure glaciers, so there are lots of pretty pictures to watch. Not a bad job, even if the implications of what he’s finding (Greenland outlet glaciers doubling in speed) are worrying…
In an astonishing press release issued last week, the New Zealand Climate “Science” Coalition predicts that 2011 will be the “coolest year globally since 1956 or even earlier”. The C”S”C bases its prediction on the work of Australian “computer consultant and occasional travel photographer” John McLean. Hot Topic readers will remember McLean as the lead author of a rapidly rebutted 2009 paper (written with Chris de Freitas and Bob Carter) which claimed that El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events were a driver of global temperature increases. I covered the full story at the time: see Mother Nature’s Sons and subsequent posts.
One unoriginal finding of the McLean paper was that global temperatures were affected by ENSO events — warming after El Niños and cooling after La Niñas. Last year NZ C”S”C member Bryan Leyland used this to “predict” a coming cooling, which was lapped up by the usual suspects. In January this year, Leyland predicted cooling would continue until at least June. Now McLean has taken this a step further by predicting that temperatures will plunge to that of a cool year 50 years ago. There’s no justification for this prediction in the press release, beyond McLean pretending that his 2009 paper showed that CO2 was a minor player in global temperature change.
Unfortunately for the credibility of all involved, McLean’s prediction is utter unphysical nonsense. Here’s why…
Bob Carter, in Shhsshh … don’t talk about the science, Quadrant Online, Feb 28 2011:
So what about the famous global warming which occurred in the late 20th century, whatever happened to that? Well, not only did the gentle warming terminate in 1998, but in accord with natural climate cycling that warming has been followed by a gentle cooling since about 2001. That’s ten years of no temperature increase, let alone dangerous increase, over the same time period that atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by about 5%.
Run that past me again, Professors Garnaut and Flannery – your advice to government still remains that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming?
Ross Garnaut, in his introduction to the Garnaut Climate Change Review – Update 2011, Update Paper five, March 10 2011: The science of climate change, after noting that statisticians confirmed (again) the presence of a warming trend in the latest data:
The statistical evidence did not stop assertions in the public debate that the earth was cooling, but it does seem to have discouraged at least the numerate and rational from repetition of errors into which they had carelessly fallen.
So where does that leave Carter, I wonder? I think we can rule out his being careless in the presentation of the facts. And he can’t really be innumerate — the Royal Society of New Zealand does not welcome the mathematically challenged to its ranks. Irrational? How else do you describe someone who argues the exact opposite of the truth? What’s the term I’m striving for? Is he being economical with the truth or simply telling lies? I leave that for the reader to decide.
Ross Garnaut, the Australian government’s climate change adviser, today published the science update [PDF] to his 2008 report. It warns that recent research has “confirmed and strengthened” the view that the earth is warming and humanity is to blame. Temperatures and sea level continue to rise, and there are worrying signs that a 2ºC target may no longer be “safe”. Garnaut comments that it is an “awful reality” that his 2008 review did not overestimate the risks of climate change. Most telling, though, are the update’s final lines. After a section discussing scientific reticence as a possible reason (pace Hansen) why published science appears to systematically underestimate the extent and dangers of probable climate change, Garnaut states:
We should, however, be alert to the possibility that the reputable science in future will suggest that it is in Australians’ and humanity’s interests to take much stronger and much more urgent action on climate change than might seem warranted from today’s peer-reviewed published literature. We have to be ready to adjust expectations and policy in response to changes in the wisdom from the mainstream science.
In other words, don’t bank on getting an easy ride. Full details below the fold.
Continue reading “Garnaut update on climate science: avoiding high risks will require large changes”
This astonishing view of the Tasman Glacier from space, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite on March 2nd, shows the bergs in the glacial lake — the remnants of the 30 million tons of ice that broke off during the Christchurch earthquake on Feb 22nd. It’s a false colour image — red means vegetation, and the grey-browns are bare rock (and the rock debris covering the glacier itself). There’s more information at the NASA Earth Observatory. The Tasman’s near neighbour the Murchison Glacier has recently featured at Mauri Pelto’s From A Glacier’s Perspective. Both are retreating strongly.
[Update 9/3: The Earth Observatory’s latest image of the day is a stunning satellite picture of the Christchurch region, with an overlay showing shaking intensities.]
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