I’ve been in Hong Kong two days now and I haven’t seen the sun yet.
My hotel room has a magnificent view over the harbour. I did see some sun beams early yesterday morning penetrating through the smog haze over the harbour – but no sun.
Photograph taken looking from Hung Hom (Kowloon) east to the island of Hong Kong from the top of the Harbour Plaza Hotel on 11th September 2006 at about 3pm.
It’s an eight hour flight from Brisbane to Hong Kong and I tuned the screen in the back of the seat in-front of me to Al Gore’s new movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and watched the movie a couple of times. I had already seen it at a cinema in Brisbane the day before, so I’ve now seen 'An Inconvenient Truth' three times.
It’s a mighty piece of propaganda in which Gore doesn’t let a single inconvenient truth get in the way of his thesis that the earth is already experiencing dramatic climate change as a result of extremely elevated carbon dioxide levels.
Early in the movie there is a cartoon depicting a 'Mr Sunbeam' marching down to earth only to be trapped and then beaten up by some ‘global warming thugs’. An analogy is made between the bodies of dead ‘sunbeams’ piling up within the earth’s atmosphere and planet earth overheating.
Gore is correct to indicate that carbon dioxide levels have risen dramatically over recent decades, but he is wrong to suggest there has been a corresponding dramatic increase in temperature. Global air temperatures have only risen by about 0.6C over the last 30 years – though more dramatically at the Arctic. He suggests sea temperatures have also risen dramatically as an explanation for the veracity of hurricane Katrina.
Gore was correct to indicate that with global warming there should be a corresponding increasing in rainfall and snowfall, but it is unclear to me whether this has actually been the case. I understand more snowing is falling on Greenland, but less on the Australian Alps.
Gore went on to claim more rain is falling in more extreme events giving the example of Mumbai (India) in July 2005. He also indicated that rainfall patterns are changing with places like the African Sahel experiencing more extreme drought.
In the movie, all of this was attributed to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. There was no mention in the movie of global dimming, which a growing scientific literature* suggests has the effect of reducing global temperatures as well as potentially reducing rainfall and snowfall by affecting both cloud droplet coalescence and ice precipitation formation. There is also potential for this phenomenon to change precipitation patterns, with the pollution from Australia’s capital cities and industrial areas potential creating a downwind rain shadow.
Global dimming is a consequence of increasing levels of urban and industrial pollution with man-made airborne aerosols having the effect of sending Al Gore’s 'Mr Sunbeams' back into space, in effect saving them from the global warming thugs depicted in the cartoon in the movie.
So the haze that has been hanging over Hong Kong, can potentially counteract the increasing levels of carbon dioxide. This potentially explains why global temperatures have not increased dramatically.
Of course there are other explanations, but given the anticipated growth in the Chinese and other economies, and the likely corresponding increase in air pollution, shouldn’t Gore have at least acknowledged the issue?
Al Gore’s movie purports to present facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way. But Gore so simplifies and exaggerates just one aspect of our understanding of climate physics that it would perhaps have been more honest to have called the movie ‘A Plug for Anthropogenic Global Warming Wthout All The Inconvenient Truths’.
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* I was recently sent the following very interesting papers on global dimming and its potential impact on rainfall in Australia: Rosenfeld, D. (2000) Suppression of rain and snow by urban and industrial air pollution. Science, Vol 287, pp 1793-1796. Rosenfeld et. al. (2005) Potential impacts of air pollution aerosols on precipitation in Australia. Clean Air and Environmental Quality, Vol 40, No. 2, pp 43-49. Rosenfeld, D. (2006) Aerosols, Clouds and Climate. Science, Vol 312, pp. 1323 – 1324. ABC TV Four Corners did a feature on global dimming in March 2005, the transcript and reference documents can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1328747.htm
I’m hoping to publish a few blog pieces on the movie and invite guest posts from others: email your contribution to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .
1edb79f8cc5c Very good
ionolsen23 May we exchange links with your site?
How can you believe that the environment is not a moral issue? If we do not clean up our act now then the world will not be safe to live in for much longer! Face the facts, I do not see you presenting any of your own, you only criticise those which other people present. You seem to have a grudge against Al Gore, because you have criticised him and his movie before you have even seen it!
I don't think you understand the way in which society relies on fossil fuels. In your 'monologue' here http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2006/1751872.htm, you say that we will simply 'switch over from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources'. This cannot be done 'simply' at all. Almost EVERYTHING in the entire world is made with reliance upon fossil fuels, and so far alternative sources cannot produce enough electricty for us to switch. Yes, soon advances will be made that will allow us to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. But it will be by no means simple, and will not just happen.
Coral reefs are some of the best natural indicators, along with frogs in a natural ecosystem. The temperature of the water greatly affects their health. Just because the warmer is getting warmer does not mean that the reefs will grow, that is similar to saying that the more rain a plant receives, the healthier it will be. They are both false, it is well known that plants can be over-watered and die, and reefs are the same, if it gets just a little bit too warm they will die. Simply look at the Great Barrier Reef, it is already dying.
It is not simply the cyclones which endanger us either, a far greater threat is the icecaps melting. And if you think it is good that the oceans are getting warmer, think again. Didn't you hear Gore say, if an amount of ice the size of half of Greenland melts, (a realistic amount in the next 20 years) then the sea-level will rise around 18 feet. 6 metres! A significant portion of populated land will be under water! How can you dismiss something as seriious as that? Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced, why do you fail to mention those facts in your attack upon the movie? Shame on you!
I cannot beleive that you are playing down the seriousness of our situation. At the moment it is the single-greatest threat we have ever faced, and there needs to be as much awareness about it as possible. I find it disgusting that in your position of influence you are spreading this false word. I don't know what else to say... I feel betrayed.
Tristan O'Brien 17
Adelaide
So what they cried.
I have claimed many times on this blog that AGW sceptics have no idea of the difficulties involved in taking direct measurements and making decisions on the spot based on personal experience with modeling various conditions.
In the 1960’s Kodak commissioned a series of huge new processing laboratories and bulk film storage in Melbourne. This outpost of modern technology from the US had the best of all instrumentation available in the world. It also had the largest refrigeration plant ever built in the southern hemisphere. I was sent in there to quickly learn the latest in technology regarding things like air conditioning for highly sensitive stock. But the whole place was shrouded in secrecy.
At this time who tested what A-Bomb where was not common knowledge and we can guess who else Kodak routinely tipped off on changes in our local atmosphere down under. Our science of all things atmospheric was very very young then.
There were a lot of things I never got to see however reading between the lines, drifts, trends and whole processes becomes a highly developed art when you want to know something important in the dark. Guess who was sent home minus a note book with sketches based on a boy’s vivid imagination.
Effective measurement and instrument calibration is only part of a solution in a turmoil.
Further reflection on gas mixing; the note on strontium 90 apparently found here after the ‘French Pacific’ (my assumption) atomic tests has no base in info on the www however that incident was most likely about March 1963.
Mr Mott should think about the practical difficulties in measuring CO2 with a strong ocean breeze plenty of mixing not too many problems, but stations are on land where CO2 fluxes are quite variable at low wind speeds or winds not comming over the ocean, you can get some quite high CO2 levels especially at night when there is no drawdown by photosyntheis and inversion layers stop mixing and all soil and plant respired air accumulates close to the ground so data has to be filtered to be useful.
You should also look at the C14 record see data attached to the CALIB package for C14 ages http://calib.qub.ac.uk/calib/manual/ it shows a nice smooth curve for C14 moving from the atmosphere into the vegetation and soils, pre-bomb dilution from fossil fuels etc and no funny spikes.