There is ample evidence that the earth's climate has always changed, that there have been ice-ages and interglacial warm periods and sometimes dramatic shifts in temperature over relatively short periods. This is what I understand by 'climate change'.
I understand that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defines 'climate change' as that which is attributable directly or indirectly to human activity. I consider this definition to be wrong and subversive and I reject it.
Given that the earth's climate has changed in the past, it is reasonable to assume that climate will change in the future - whether or not we do anything about rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Because I have often stated that there will be climate change whether or not we do anything about the increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, I have been accused of not caring, or suggesting we should not try and do something about carbon dioxide emissions.
Indeed Friends of the Earth misrepresent my position in their media release of last Thursday by stating that "Dr Jennifer Marohasy conceded that climate change is inevitable and we should adapt to what's coming but not reduce greenhouse gas emissions" ( http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0507/S00436.htm ).
I have never said that we should not try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I have always said that we should be concerned about increasing carbon dioxide levels. I have suggested investment in new technologies as a better option to Kyoto.
Friends of the Earth accurately quote me: "I actually think that it's good if we can get beyond this debate of whether increasing carbon dioxide levels are driving more extreme climate events. I think that we need to move beyond that and accept and recognise that whether or not we can reduce carbon dioxide levels, there will be climate change."
On this basis governments need to develop reactive contingency plans. I do not believe that climate change will necessarily be 'catastrophic' - but I do suggest we should prepare for more extreme weather events, as well as the possibility that it could be either drier or wetter in the future.
Furthermore, I suggest that trends in climate change can and should be evaluated using empirical data as well as computer models.
In summary, I am concerned about climate change and I have always been concerned about climate change.
I do acknowledge that carbon dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases. The empirical evidence, however, does not show a clear relationship between increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. Global temperatures have increased, but only slightly (0.6C over 150 years) and have jumped about from year to year. In contrast the increase in carbon dioxide levels has been significant and linear. Other things are clearly affecting global temperature.
I consider Thursday's announcement of the new climate pact between the USA, Australia, South Korea, Japan, India and China to be great news (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1425101.htm).
Here is a commitment focused on reducing carbon dioxide levels that has a chance of delivering something significant because it includes the emerging superpowers of India and China.
I am amazed that this deal is being critised on the basis that it may deliver very little, when the Bob Browns of the world have always acknowledged Kyoto will deliver very little but they have said it is at least a first step.
Well, why not then consider the 'Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate' a second step?
Hello Jennifer
I have stumbled across your site while chasing down a contact address for Professor Ian Plimer who I heard on radio station 2gb a few weeks ago .
It is encouraging to see more and more people are starting to see the facts for what they are
and not be led along blindly with the view of others.
Good on ya !
Phill
And of course nothing from Louis. My blog entry is at http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2005/08/loius_hissink_w.html
I had to create a category (click on my name) for Bob Carter on my blog to cover his frequent misrepresentations....
Loius - While I note that you could reply with a smartalec answer you could not add much in the way of science.
Anyone that goes to my blog from now on will see the post "Loius Hissink Writes B------t with a link to this post. I will remove it anytime you would care to answer the question with something approaching scientific truth instead of the mis-information that you usually write.
Jennifer has seen fit to post a special article on you - how about you live up to this trust and, as a scientist, answer the simple question I have posed.
Gee, August 5,
Ender will post on his blog.
GOSH! as Bernard Woolley would gasp
David Vader
As regards your most recent accusation of 'cherry picking':
http://www.ipa.org.au/units/climatechange.html
Yes, Professor Ian Plimer, Melbourne University, and Professor Bob Carter, James Cook University, have both written for the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on climate change.
While I can't pick and choose who will comment at this blog site, I am proud to be associated with both Bob and Ian through the IPA.
Bob's sediment core work gives real insight into past climates, see for example Science Vol 304, pg. 1659 (2004).
Bob's home page is at:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/
And Ian, while also an expert on the history of planet earth, has taken up the fight against the teaching of 'creation' as a science in schools.
Some information on Prof Plimer:
http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/people/plimer/
http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.asp?productid=157459
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/creationdebate5.htm
While you falsely accuse these men of being in the pocket of industry, I wonder exactly who David Vader is? While you incessantly question the motivations of so-called climate skeptics, I note they declare their real names and work affiliations. In contrast, it is unclear exactly who the accuser David Vader really is, and it appears that the email address you provide at this web-log is bogus. At least this has been my experience:
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
'dvader@bigpond.com' on 1/08/2005 4:11 PM
550 Invalid recipient: dvader@bigpond.com
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
'dvader@bigpond.com' on 4/08/2005 7:56 AM
550 Invalid recipient:
http://www.ipa.org.au/units/climatechange.html
Jen - I suggest that this is hardly a scholarly review of the subject from a supposed "independent think tank". No pros and cons - just a selected cherry pick from commentators typically suffering geologists myopia.
Or perhaps is this what the "backers" expect ?
Global warming may pump up hurricane power
Global warming is pumping up the destructive power of hurricanes and typhoons, a new study suggests.
An analysis of data on storm winds and duration shows that potential wind-caused damage has roughly doubled over the past 30 years, although tropical sea-surface temperatures have increased by only half a degree over that time, says Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.
The frequency of hurricanes seems unaffected by global warming. Regional totals vary periodically, but the number of tropical cyclones around the world averages a steady 90 per year. But Emanuel's study is the second in weeks to link storm intensity with climate.
Feeding peak sustained-wind data into his model, he calculated the total potential destructive power over the life of all storms each year since about 1950 in the world’s two best-monitored areas – the North Atlantic and the north-west Pacific. He found a striking correlation between their destructive potential and sea-surface temperatures.
Smoking gun
Hurricanes are powered by the temperature difference between the top of the sea and the air above the storm, so warmer water was expected to pump the storms harder. But previous computer models had predicted that the half-degree increase in sea-surface temperatures from global warming over the past 30 years should have increased wind speed by only about 3%, corresponding to a 10% increase in Emanuel's estimate of destructive power.
Instead, Emanuel found that the destructive power of North Atlantic storms more than doubled over the past 30 years. For north-west Pacific storms, the increase was about 75%. He attributes the sharp jump to increases in storm duration as well as much larger than expected increases in wind power.
The results surprised Chris Landsea at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division in Miami, US. "This is the first article that has a smoking gun between global warming and hurricane activity," he told New Scientist.
Adjusting estimates
Kevin Trenberth of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, says Emanuel's results parallel his study of storm kinetic energy.
Yet some big questions remain. Storm winds are virtually impossible to measure directly, and techniques for estimating them indirectly have changed over the years. To adjust for those changes, Emanuel reduced wind estimates in the 1950s and 1960s.
But Landsea says the unadjusted figures show no overall trend, raising doubts over whether Emanuel's model is making the right corrections. Although winds from that period looked too low in the past, Landsea says that wind estimates may actually have been too low in the 1970s through to the early 1990s.
Neither study considered changes in rainfall, which causes flooding that has been responsible for many deaths and damage in recent storms.
Journal reference: Nature (DOI:10.1038/nature03906
Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years
Kerry Emanuel says:
Theory and modelling predict that hurricane intensity should increase with increasing global mean temperatures, but work on the detection of trends in hurricane activity has focused mostly on their frequency and shows no trend. Here I define an index of the potential destructiveness of hurricanes based on the total dissipation of power, integrated over the lifetime of the cyclone, and show that this index has increased markedly since the mid-1970s. This trend is due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm intensities. I find that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multi-decadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming. My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century.
Louis - You have not responded to my question. I will give you another few days before I post on my blog.
Greenland !
Two University of Maine scientists studying the effects of climate
change in the Arctic have discovered that two glaciers in Greenland are
moving at a not-so-glacial pace.
The scientists returned last week from a five-week expedition to the
east coast of Greenland, where they studied the movement of five
glaciers. They found that two of the glaciers are moving at far faster
rates than just a few years ago, raising questions about the effects of
regional warming.
One glacier, called Kangerdlugssuaq, was moving at the rate of nearly 9
miles a year, making it one of the world's fastest-moving glaciers, the
researchers said. In the late 1990s, it was moving at about 3.5 miles a
year.
"It's a bit alarming because the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica
are so large that it usually takes thousands of years for these types
of changes to actually occur, not five or 10 years," said Gordon
Hamilton, a professor at the university's Climate Change Institute.
The glaciers' accelerated speeds in Greenland suggest that the climate
is warming up [ . . . ]