Scientists believe they have discovered proof that global warming has altered Tasmania’s marine environment. So begins one of today’s stories at ABC Online, that continues …
A group of biologists from the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute has found a shallow reef extensively covered by coral at the Kent Group Marine Protected Area near Flinders Island off the north-east of Tasmania.
Coral reefs only survive in warmer waters and are usually found in tropical areas such as Queensland.
The senior biologist who discovered the reef, Neville Barrett, believes it is evidence that rising water temperatures are having an impact on the marine environment.
John McLean has responded with a letter to the Editor of ABC Online. The letter begins with a comment about “sloppy journalism at its worst” and then makes the following 7 points:
1. Data from the UK’s Climate Research Unit shows that Southern Hemisphere
temperatures are less than 0.4 degrees C above their 1961-90
average. WARMING IS LARGELY A NORTHERN HEMISPHERE PHENOMENON (despite
carbon dioxide being relatively even in both hemispheres – but that’s
another story).
2. Data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows that both Tasmania and
Victoria were warmer than the 1961-90 average in 1999 (by about 0.5
degrees) but annual average temperatures have steadily declined since
then. In 2004 Tasmania’s average temperature was 0.25 degrees below that
long term average and Victoria’s just 0.07 degrees above their average.
3. Data from the US NOAA shows that sea surface temperatures in Bass
Strait have been close to normal save for a short period about January 2003
when warmer waters (caused by El Nino conditions in the Pacific a few
months earlier) made their way down the east coast of Australia.
4. The report INCORRECTLY stated “Coral reefs only survive in warmer
waters and are usually found in tropical areas such as Queensland.” The
report would have been closer to the mark had it said that “SHALLOW WATER
coral reefs have only been found…” because deeper water coral reefs have
been found in many places. In the 1990s, Norwegian scientists discovered a
14-kilometer-long, 30-meter-high coral reef on the Sula Ridge–an ocean
ridge off the western coast of Norway-at a depth of 250 meters. Also in the
1990s, a French-led team discovered coral gardens thriving at 600 meters
below the surface on seafloor mounds off the coast of Ireland. Since then,
researchers throughout the world have documented a 35-kilometer reef off
Norway, coral growths atop mounds off Scotland’s coast, an area of growth
covering 100 square kilometers off Nova Scotia, and colonies along Alaska’s
Aleutian Islands.
5. Your report failed to mention the types of coral found in these reefs
and whether these were typical of shallow or deep water reefs. Given that
reefs exist at both depths, i sthere any good reason why reefs could not
exist at intermediate depths? I don’t know and your reporter clearly
didn’t bother to ask any of Australia’s most knowledgeable experts at James
Cook University in Townsville.
6. Your report failed to mention the estimated age of this coral
reef. Coral grows slowly and if this reef is more than 50 years old you
can forget about recent in Australia’s temperature having anything to do
with this formation.
7. Your report failed to mention if the region had been properly surveyed
in the past. For all we know there may be extensive coral reefs across
Bass Strait as remnants of the last Ice Age when sea levels were much lower.
Thanks John for taking the time to put the extremely naive reporting in some context. My guess is the journalist just copied from a press release – from honest scientists at a reputable research institute?
John’s website is at
http://mclean.ch/climate/global_warming.htm.
(The 7 points as detailed above were edited, mostly shortened and sharpened, at about 2.10pm on 17th July – following request from John.)
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This is yet another quite incompetent piece of journalism very properly exposed by John Mclean. It follows hard on the heels of the gushy nonsense about all the glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula were melting,when in fact a more considered analysis revealed that the peninsula represented about 2% of the Antarctic mass which as whole was getting colder and thicker..a bit like lazy journos.
Could the melting reported from the Antarctic Pennsula be due to volcanic activity? A few years ago there was a media report from Heard Island, of vegetation change, attributed (by the ABC) to global warming. Isn’t Heard Island a volcano? I have heard that, some years ago, the sea become quite warm off South Georgia. Could all this be connected with volcanism and tectonic shifts? Any experts care to comment?
Unfortunately for Malcolm Hill
Science, Vol 308, Issue 5721, 541-544 , 22 April 2005
Retreating Glacier Fronts on the Antarctic Peninsula over the Past Half-Century
A. J. Cook,1* A. J. Fox,1 D. G. Vaughan,1 J. G. Ferrigno2
The continued retreat of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula has been widely attributed to recent atmospheric warming, but there is little published work describing changes in glacier margin positions. We present trends in 244 marine glacier fronts on the peninsula and associated islands over the past 61 years. Of these glaciers, 87% have retreated and a clear boundary between mean advance and retreat has migrated progressively southward. The pattern is broadly compatible with retreat driven by atmospheric warming, but the rapidity of the migration suggests that this may not be the sole driver of glacier retreat in this region.
And more on glaciers in general for non-believers – check the references !!
Glacial meltdown
30 April 2005
From New Scientist Print Edition.
A look at the website of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) shows that its figures do not support David Bellamy’s claim that glaciers are expanding (16 April, p 28). The service itself talks about a “spectacular loss in length, area and volume of mountain glaciers in the 20th century” and says that “the recent shrinking of glaciers for the first time now coincides with man-induced climate forcing” (see http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb7/MBB7.pdf).
The latest WGMS figures for 2002/2003, shown at http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb8/sum0203.html, indicate even greater losses for that year and do not support Bellamy’s claim that the glaciers in Norway are “growing at a record pace”. A separate site at http://members.tripod.com/NZPhoto/south/04Glaciers.htm gives no support for the view that New Zealand’s glaciers show any long-term growth.
The NASA-supported GLIMS (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) project seems justified in claiming that “most of the world’s glaciers are stagnant or in hasty retreat”.
From Hilary Gee
I read Bellamy’s letter with amazement. He suggests that glaciers are not shrinking overall. Is this in order to deny that global warming is occurring? On the other hand he does seem to concede that there has been measurable warming of 0.6°C. What is the main point of his letter apart from rubbishing the “Kyotoists”?
I checked some of the facts he quotes and I believe he is being more selective than he accuses the Kyotoists of being. He quotes the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich. Figures published by the WGMS, and the National Snow and Ice Data Centre to which it refers, actually show considerable and continuing overall reduction in glacial mass of the monitored glaciers since 1980. Map and pictorial evidence stretches much further back.
Individual glaciers do show increases in particular years, but the increases are generally much smaller and a lot fewer than the decreases in any one year and are not sustained. I suppose if you count them all up a majority of glaciers may have grown for one or two years at some point over the decades. But the overall bulk of glacier decreases almost every year.
Greenland may be cooling locally (because of the Gulf Stream slowing), but the ice sheet is continuing to thin and is melting faster than ever over recent decades. West Norwegian glaciers did indeed grow during the 1980s and 1990s following unusually heavy snowfalls. However, there has been a large retreat overall during the past century and they have been retreating rapidly over the last several years.
I found no overall estimate of the thickness of the east Antarctic ice sheet. Comments suggested that some parts may be thickening while others are not. The west Antarctic ice sheet is definitely and rapidly retreating and breaking up and has been for decades, according to the published pictures and maps.
Most of the Sierra Nevada glaciers are reported to be retreating rapidly and have been over the last century. The only exceptions are the Mount Shasta glaciers. However, Shasta is a comparatively isolated peak which tends to collect any precipitation going, and warmer may mean wetter. The Mount Rainier glacier is actually much smaller than it was 100 years ago. It did temporarily advance, but it is now reported that through the 1980s and 1990s it was shrinking faster than ever. The Perito Moreno glacier is reported to be stable overall by several university geoscience researchers, both advancing and retreating in an irregular cycle. It is also noted as being the only glacier from the south Patagonian ice sheet that is not retreating. Other North and South American glaciers are almost universally described as shrinking.
Numerous other sources picture and describe retreat and shrinking of the majority of glaciers. Nearly all the Google hits for glacial advance concerned general glaciology, ice ages and the little ice age, not currently or recently growing glaciers.
It is a pity that such a respected scientist should appear so blinkered in the face of the evidence. Whatever the cause and regardless of whether we can or should do anything about it, it is a fact that glaciers are shrinking – on average.
Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, UK
So we can all find what we want eh ?
David Vader.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/04/22/the-tip-of-the-iceberg-yet-another-predictable-distortion/
This tends to show good evidence of an increase in ice thickness and cooler temperature overall,particularly when one goes beyond the narrow confines of the peninsula area.
David Vader,
If it is a fact that glaciers are shrinking, you no doubt would have the numbers to back your assertion.
Have you those numbers? Is there an inventory of glaciers globally?
I might add that I do not accept the philosophy of innocent until proven guilty – as a Dutchman, I prefer the guilty until proven innocent argument.
You, Sir, need to prove your point, not we, ours.
Malcolm – increased snowpack is part of the actual greenhouse expected result – counter intuitive but true.
And that’s really cool (sorry groovey). But how about a mechanism for the glacier fronts. Let’s not just say – “well that’s all very annoying and move on”.
Louis – glad to meet a hanging judge – you’d be useful in Indonesia – read the references provided – if you want to take on the international body in glacier research be my guest. But be careful they may have been infiltrated by commies. They may be “fudging” their results like all the other global warming creeps. Trust noone !!
You, Sir, need to prove your point, not we(you conspicuously absent with any real facts or alternative serious mechanisms in ANY scientific journal), ours. But that’s right I forgot – but they’re been infiltrated haven’t they. So who can we ask – I know let’s ask God.
For Antarctic cooling – Global Warming ?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=18#more-18
Mr Vader
I wonder what Bill Kinninmonth thinks of this line that GW is now evidenced by the poles getting cooler. Come to think of it isnt it also contrary to the prediction made by the IPCC/TAR, and if it truly is the case, what does that do the illustrious GCM’s, which are set up to model warming at the poles, not cooling.
Oh what tangled web we weave.
Mr Hill – read the web reference above your comment….
Doran, P. T., Priscu, J. C., Lyons, W. B., Walsh, J. E., Fountain, A. G., McKnight, D. M., Moorhead D. L., Virginia, R. A., Wall, D. H., Clow, G. D., Fritsen, C. H., McKay, C. P. and Parsons, A. N. (2002) Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response. Nature.
Dr Peter Doran, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the lead author of the paper, said long-term data from weather stations across the continent, coupled with a separate set of measurements from the Dry Valleys, supported a cooling trend.
Our 14-year continuous weather station record from the shore of Lake Hoare reveals that seasonally averaged surface air temperature has decreased by 0.7C per decade,” the authors report.
Dr David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey, said temperature records going back 50 years showed that the continent had been getting warmer over the longer term. “There are regional differences in climate change,” he added.
Trends in mean annual air temperature for 1950-98 show three areas of especially rapid regional warming: northwestern North America and the Beaufort Sea; an area around the Siberian plateau; and the Antarctic peninsula and the adjoining Bellingshausen Sea.
For all Antarctic stations, the mean temperature trend for 1959-96 is +1.2 degrees C per century, but there are marked regional variations.
At Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole, annual air temperatures have actually cooled since 1958. On the Antarctic peninsula, though, they have warmed since reliable records began in the 1950s.
The BAS scientists say the longest records show a warming in the northwest of the peninsula “considerably larger than the mean Antarctic trend”, with shorter records suggesting that the warming extends further south and east.
I have looked in vain for answers from the climate experts on my suggestion that volcanism may explain the local warming of the Antarctic Peninsular, Heard Island etc. I live in hope.
Meanwhile, here’s another query. Except for mountain tops and deserts, I believe there is a general tendency for the diversity and abundance of life to be greater at the equator, where it is warm, than at the poles, where it is cold. Would not a general warming of a few degrees tend to increase the diversity and abundance of life, overall? Would this be a good, or a bad thing?
Well there probably isn’t much data. But the warming isn’t only in these areas – it’s global – glaciers all over the world, temperature changes, extreme events, species changes AND artic melt too.
Heard Island’s terrestrial environment is buffeted by strong winds which would give the flora its surface temperature and fundamental basis for growth. For a major change in temperature there would have to be an anomalous hot spot in surrounding ocean – I’m not aware the satellite observations of ocean sea surface temperatures show a warm spot….so ….
In terms of a few more degrees being a good thing. Well that is OK on the face of it. But that “average” chnage will also change the frequency of the tail of the distributions too – more intense fllods, drought, more intense rainfall when it happens and more heatwaves. Does El Nino get affected.
The Sahara desert is also near the Equator and doesn’t have near the biodiversity of an equatorial rainforest. If the rainfall on the rainforests doesn’t come and fires increase it could be mega-diasterous for those systems. And grasslands would always love to cover areas that used to have trees and use fires to keep it that way.. So if you have an increase in temperature, some more rainfall, and not too many extreme events – maybe things may be not too bad.
A positive note is that a warmer North America may be able to get some more yield from its high latitude(Canada) temperate wheat crops and extra CO2. AS LONG AS they have the rainfall to go with it.
Thanks David Vader,
I am beginning to understand. But didn’t a Swedish study show that the area of the Sahara is decreasing as vegetation moves northward? Also, I have seen statements (can’t remember where) that there is no hard statistical evidence of an overall increase in extreme weather. Perhaps only an increase in media attention (courtesy of WWF, Greenpeace etc?), and greater casualties due to increased human population, living in areas previously avoided (for example the Brahmaputra floodplain?) Any comments?
I suppose we will all know the truth in twenty years or so, although I will be 88 by then, and probably won’t care whether it is 25, or 26 degrees outside.
I must say TV images of icebergs melting, and seemingly doomed polar bears adrift on ice floes strike me as blatantly misleading journalism. Haven’t icebergs always melted, and aren’t polar bears strong swimmers, which often swim out to ice floes in the hope of a quick snack of snoozing seal?
My mind is still open, and I accept that there is, and always has been, climate change. But at the moment “anthropogenic global warming disaster” seems much like the erstwhile “Y2K disaster”, which also received much media and political attention – for a while. By the way, what happened to all those Y2K experts?
I don’t think the Sahara is at risk of disappearing soon – it’s massive…. and I would have thought increased desertification may have been more the issue… but we won’t go there or we’ll be into humans or climate discussions again….
I think you’ll find that the global insurance industry is quite concerned about climate change. Tropical cyclone speeds in our region have been very high in recent years, it’s easy to find rainfall intensity changes already in Australian records, various heatwaves and floods in Europe. A lot happening … no single event can be pinned down to climate change but there’s an increasing number of records and one-off events…
I think you’ll find that the Arctic melt is happening quite fast. there is quite good satellite and observational data. Soem travel adverts are saying “See Alaska while you can ..”
The Inuits will tell you things are changing – they live in it…
Y2K is a very murky area – but suffice to say stacks of work was on the issue and so disaster didn’t happen. All serious coporations and goverments got their act together. Globally govt spent billions on it (probably too much … and that’s the debating point)
David Ward – a reply was offered but Jen’s system axed it
Good book for all which might bring about some scepticisms and answers “wheather” you choose to believe or not.
Michael Crichton’s-State of Fear