Jennifer Marohasy

ACCORDING to the international panel on climate change (IPCC) any direct temperature rise from increasing carbon dioxide levels is greatly amplified by positive feedback from water vapour. As the theory goes, rising carbon dioxide levels from human activity causes some temperature rise which causes more water to evaporate.  Because water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas, [...]

ECOLOGISTS in Australia have discovered that cane toads are susceptible to being killed and eaten by meat ants – and much more susceptible to the ants than are native Australian frogs.
They claim that their research – published in the British Ecological Society’s journal Functional Ecology – reveals a “chink in the cane toad’s armour” that [...]

According to a new study, about 70% of the recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is from reduced numbers of dust storms and volcanic eruptions. Other factors, such as a warming of the global climate, contribute only about 30% to the upward trend.  Read more here.

Folks,
 
The April edition of Quadrant has published a written version of the talk that I gave at the Heartland-2 conference in New York, under the title “A New Policy Direction for Climate Change”. It can be accessed online at:
 
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/4/a-new-policy-direction-for-climate-change
 
The same issue also contains an very useful analysis by Tom Quirk of the perils of computer [...]

George Browning, the former Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, told more than 2,000 people gathered in London’s Westminster Abbey that human activity was causing climate change and extreme weather conditions.  Read more here.

THE fifteenth United Nations Climate Conference (COP-15) will be held in Copenhagen in November. While only one official view on the science, that of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is usually put forward at these gatherings, this year the United Nations has agreed to support an alternative and probably rival overall [...]