Australian business icon Sir Arvi Parbo may not know much about the science of climate change, but he does know a bit about Australian business. I was interested to read his comment of last Wednesday that:
“Big business today is very conscious of public opinion. It is therefore not surprising that the recent publicity successes of the alarmist views on climate change have been reflected in both government and business attitudes, in business also because there is the promise of great scope for new business ventures in carbon trading and in subsidised industries. The entrepreneurs are naturally always looking for opportunities. It was surprising, however, to see a very senior Australian businessman quoted in a newspaper the other day as saying that he was influenced to become a believer by Mr.Al Gore’s film, hurricane Katrina, and cyclone Larry. One hopes that our business leaders base their judgements on more relevant evidence.”
Sir Arvi Parbo was speaking as a guest of the The Lavoisier Society at the launch of ‘Nine Facts About Climate Change’.
I am republishing the full speech* here:
“Thank you for inviting me to speak at this launch of ‘Nine Facts About Climate Change’ by Ray Evans.
Let me first of all establish my position: I am not a climate scientist, or a scientist of any kind, but I do have a technical background and spent much of my working life trying to make sense of what experts told me. Having some understanding of the geological history of the Earth, I have been amused by the slogans “Stop climate change” and, more recently, “Climate change is real”. That the climate is changing is not in question, it always has and always will. The issue is much narrower: whether carbon dioxide emissions arising from human activities,
unless checked, will cause disastrous global warming.
For the last 20 years I have tried hard not to pre-judge the issue but to listen with an open, although critical, mind to the arguments of both, the so-called ‘believers’ and the ‘sceptics’. I am still trying to do so. It has been a confusing and frustrating, but also an educational experience.
I was brought up to believe that scientists not only welcome but encourage questioning of their conclusions. If their science is solid, they can by presenting the evidence answer the questions. If they cannot do so, it must mean that there is uncertainty. Genuine scientists are committed to resolving the uncertainties and looking for the truth.
I still like to think that most scientists behave in this way, but in the case of global warming what started out as a scientific assessment has gradually become something quite different. While science remains at the bottom of the issue, politics, social agendas, ideology, and even a semi-religious fervor have come to overshadow it and dominate the public debate. One must admire the skilful way in which the public has been led to believe that there is no longer any uncertainty, and that disastrous climate change caused by humans is imminent.
The appointment of Mr. Al Gore as adviser to the UK Government on climate change is a good example. I am not aware of Mr. Gore’s ranking as a climate scientist, but he has undoubted credentials as a politician and someone who knows how to influence public opinion. His film The Inconvenient Truth has been widely publicised, has been seen by, and has influenced millions of people around the world.
It has been severely criticised for deliberately and grossly exaggerating and distorting the issues and I understand that the recently published Summary for Policymakers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contradicts a number of Mr. Gore’s major contentions. This, in contrast, has had virtually no publicity and no
effect on the public.
Mr. Gore’s film was followed by the Stern Review, released with alarmist headline publicity late last year. The scientific and economic content of the Stern Review has been analysed in detail by a group of distinguished scientists and a group of distinguished economists respectively. They found that it was biased and alarming,
neither accurate nor objective. As far as I am aware, this criticism has not been answered. Published as a 68-page article in the specialist journal World Economics, it has had very little publicity and no impact on public opinion. Very few people even know about it.
Early this month the Intergovernmental Panel For Climate Change (IPCC) released with much publicity the Summary for Policymakers of its Fourth Assessment Report. Media headlines before, during, and after the release – ‘Ten years to reverse the global meltdown’ was typical – once again predicted an imminent catastrophe. Remarkably, the report of which the Summary created such headlines is not available and will not be finalised until May this year.
There has been no explanation of the reasons for such an extraordinary procedure.
The scientists analysing the scientific content of the Stern Review pointed out that:
‘In its last Assessment Report, the IPCC still rated the “level of scientific understanding” of nine out of twelve identified climate forcings as “low” or “very low”, highlighted the limitations and short history of climate models, and recognised large uncertainties about how clouds react to climate forcing. Since then, major scientific papers have claimed, among other things, that the forcing of methane has been underestimated by about a half, that half the warming over the twentieth century might be explained by solar changes, that cosmic rays could have a large effect on climate, and that the role of aerosols is more important than that of greenhouse gases. Generally speaking, none of these suggestions is included in current climate models though, as mentioned later, aerosols are used, without any proper or rigorous basis, to cancel greenhouse warming which would otherwise be far in excess of what we have experienced.’
This is hardly consistent with recent claims that “the science has now been settled”.
It will not be known until May what new evidence has overcome these major uncertainties to justify the upgrading of IPCC’s assessment of human influence on global warming from ‘likely’ to ‘very likely’. I, for one, am looking forward to finding out. In the meantime the evidence supporting the conclusion cannot be assessed. How could the conclusion have been reached without the report being finalised and why the rush to publish the Summary before the report itself?
Other questions remain unanswered. For example, some time ago Henderson and Castles pointed out that the basis of the projections of future human-caused carbon dioxide emissions in the 2001 IPCC report did not make economic or statistical sense. Has this been corrected? We do not know.
There are other pointers that science has been relegated to the background.
Open efforts have been made to prevent research which may not support the views of the ’believers’, and even to prevent people from expressing critical views. It has been sad to see even some otherwise respected scientific institutions participating in such unbelievable behaviour.
An uninvolved observer has to conclude that there has been a concerted and well-organised campaign to create worldwide apprehension and alarm.
Reading and listening to the media and to political discussion, this campaign has succeeded. In fact, it may have succeeded too well. Public sentiment can be swayed by skilful propaganda in the short term, but people are not fools. Exaggeration and excessive publicity hype will eventually be seen through and are likely to
backfire. Exaggeration there certainly has been, reminiscent of Sir Humphrey Appleby’s memorable statement in “Yes, Minister”: ‘This is a catastrophe. A tragedy. A cataclysmic, apocalyptic, monumental calamity’.
My brother back in Estonia, where I was born, rang me the other day after watching a television programme informing the viewers that, because of disastrous climate change, Australia will become uninhabitable in 20 years. He wanted to know whether he should start preparing for my return there as a refugee!
A number of overseas scientists believing in the seriousness of human-caused warming have recently expressed in public their concern that the campaign has gone too far, in the words of one, “Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster”. In Australia, climate scientist Dr. Graham Pearman was recently quoted in
The Australian as saying:
“We should be cautious about stirring up anxieties about what may not come about. In reality it is very difficult to be sure about what will occur for a region or a city”.
This is very unusual, because up to now such scientists have said nothing critical, regardless of how extreme or outrageous the claims.
Politicians naturally keep close track of public sentiment. Big business today is also very conscious of public opinion. It is therefore not surprising that the recent publicity successes of the alarmist views on climate change have been reflected in both government and business attitudes, in business also because there is the promise
of great scope for new business ventures in carbon trading and in subsidised industries. The entrepreneurs are naturally always looking for opportunities. It was surprising, however, to see a very senior Australian businessman quoted in a newspaper the other day as saying that he was influenced to become a believer by Mr.
Al Gore’s film, hurricane Katrina, and cyclone Larry. One hopes that our business leaders base their judgements on more relevant evidence.
The political reality is that politicians of all persuasions, keeping an eye on the electorate, today have to be supportive of activities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This can now be changed only by the onset of global cooling (which, incidentally, may be not too far away.) Meanwhile, the hard question remains: what can sensibly be done about it? No one can argue with developing better technology, being more efficient and less wasteful, but the proposals go beyond it.
Exaggerations and hype do not survive the cold hard light of the reality that many of the proposed actions will affect the living standards and even livelihood of large numbers of people, and that in the absence of similar action by all countries these measures will not have a significant effect. We should be grateful to Dr. Flannery and Senator Brown for being a great help with this sobering up process by making outlandish claims and, most recently, by calling for shutting down Australia’s coal mining industry. Perhaps Senator Brown should be the next Australian of the Year?
Does the effect of the recent publicity campaign on public sentiment mean that we should no longer question the validity of its scientific base? On the contrary, I believe that today it is more important than ever that valid questions continue to be asked. What is more, we should insist that the proponents of human-caused global warming answer the questions. Before we even contemplate expensive and disruptive measures, we must surely understand very clearly why we are doing it.
One Australian climate scientist was recently reported as saying that the sceptics should ‘stop spending so much of our time re-answering questions that were answered 15, 20 years ago….’
If there are good answers to the questions, it would surely not take any time to just repeat these answers again. The problem, I suggest, has been the opposite: in the past the proponents of man-made global warming have simply ignored many of the questions that have been repeatedly asked. There has been little dialogue and much
talking past each other.
By producing Nine Facts About Climate Change, Ray Evans and the Lavoisier Group have issued a challenge. Ray expresses his arguments and conclusions in clear and simple language and leaves no doubt about what he believes to be true. Those who think he is wrong should have no difficulty in pointing out where and why. It will be very interesting to see whether this challenge is taken up.
Reading Ray’s paper led me to reflect on a number of matters. Ray does not say so, but from another source I understand that by far the most important so-called greenhouse gas is water vapour, which is responsible for most of the greenhouse effect. By comparison, carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas. I am sure most people do not know this. The popular perception is that there is a great and growing blanket of carbon dioxide smothering the skies and doing the damage. In fact the present CO2 content of the atmosphere is 375 parts per million, or less than four one hundredths of one per cent – a very faint trace. At twice or three times this level it will be still a very faint trace.
The popular image of CO2 is influenced, as Ray mentions, by the habit of the media to illustrate stories of global warming with pictures of chimneys belching black smoke. Quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions being colourless, if there were emissions of particulates, these would have a cooling, not warming, effect. Not
infrequently there are even clearly falsified photographs showing the impossible feat of water-cooling towers belching black smoke.
Ray makes another important point: while the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing and a part of the increase is due to human activities, there is a saturation effect – the resulting warming is not linearly proportional to the concentration. A doubling of atmospheric CO2 does not produce twice the warming,
again something not understood by the public. In fact I understand the relationship is logarithmic, in which case the additional warming effect with increasing concentration tapers off very quickly.
Ray also points out that the annual emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result of human activities are at present less than 4 per cent of the natural annual emissions from the biosphere and the oceans. Why is just the increase in this small percentage catastrophic? What about changes in the 96% from other causes?
How is it, then, that we can get so worried about the greenhouse effect caused by increasing CO2 emissions from human activities? The reason, I am told, is that the computer models assume that very small increases in CO2 concentrations produce a greatly amplified water vapour and cloud effect. At the same time it is apparently
agreed, including by the IPCC, that the critical science of the formation and behaviour of clouds is either not at all, or at best very poorly understood. The warming calculated by computer models on the assumptions made can be, I understand, more than three times higher than the actually observed warming and must be arbitrarily
reduced to make it match.
To the uninitiated, like myself, this does not add up to great confidence in the models or the results or in the resulting projections for up to a hundred years ahead.
The IPCC report to be released in May is certain to be keenly examined for explanations of how these deficiencies have been dealt with.
Another intriguing aspect of the whole issue, as Ray mentions, is that there are scientists who believe that periodical changes in solar radiation and magnetism have an overwhelming influence on our climate. They predict that the period of high solar activity in the last hundred years or so is coming to an end, and that global cooling
will begin just a few years from now. This view will be tested shortly, certainly within a decade or two, much sooner than the alternative of an alarming warming. Who knows, before long we may be urged to burn more coal to avoid a deep freeze!
When dealing with popular perceptions of any kind, we would do well to remember John Stuart Mill’s advice:
“It often happens that the universal belief of one age, a belief from which no one was free or could be free without extraordinary effort of genius or courage, becomes to a subsequent age so palapable an absurdity that the only difficulty is to imagine how such an idea could be credible”.
May I congratulate Ray Evans and his Lavoisier colleagues on the publication of ‘Nine Facts on Climate Change’, a most timely contribution to public discussion of this issue. I am not sure what one should do to launch it but, whatever it is, consider it done. May it contribute to rational and sensible discussion and help in reaching wise
decisions.
—————–
* The speech is republished here in full from http://www.lavoisier.com.au/. I have republished rather than provided a link as the website does not appear to provide a unique URL for the speech. I trust Ray will understand.
A year ago The Lavoisier Society published ‘Nine Lies About Global Warming’ there is a link and some discussion at an earlier blog post here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001259.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“Reading Ray’s paper led me to reflect on a number of matters. Ray does not say so, but from another source I understand that by far the most important so-called greenhouse gas is water vapour, which is responsible for most of the greenhouse effect. By comparison, carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas. I am sure most people do not know this. The popular perception is that there is a great and growing blanket of carbon dioxide smothering the skies and doing the damage. In fact the present CO2 content of the atmosphere is 375 parts per million, or less than four one hundredths of one per cent – a very faint trace. At twice or three times this level it will be still a very faint trace.”
A few logical fallacies. An appeal to emotion, how could that small an amount of gas make such a big difference? Also an argument from ignorance. I suggest Sir Arvi find out why, since the information is readily available on the web. Maybe he should stop listening to his friends and ask some scientists for advice who are researching the topic.
There are numerous examples of small amounts of a substance having a significant effect on a system. This is just one more example.
As to water vapour, it is not a forcing. It is part of the feedback mechanism of warming. Take away the heat, and the water vapour disappears. CO2, in contrast, does not. It persists, and acts as a greenhouse gas as long as the earth is radiating heat. More CO2, more heat trapped.
The effect is not linear, no-one has ever claimed it is. (I must point out this inconsitency, one minute it is insignificant, the next is significant, but that does not matter as doubling CO2 does not double the warming effect.) The issue is the feedback mechanisms. This is where water vapour becomes important. Raise the temperature a little, create more water vapour. More water vapour, more increase in the temperature. More heat, more ice and snow melting, revealing dark earth that absorbs rather than reflects the radiation from the sun. Which is then trapped by the CO2. You get the picture.
Just to give some indication of the scale of the fluxes in natural CO2 that are wrongly given as a constant in climate models is the treatment of the worlds forests. To my knowledge the IPCC held zero consultation with the forest industries and all their experts before making their determinations on how wood based CO2 would be accounted for.
So at the moment all the worlds forests are deemed to be climax forests that emit as much CO2 through decay as they absorb through growth. And from this assumption they then concluded that any removal of a tree from any forest produces a net emission. And, with a few exceptions, the carbon in that tree is deemed to have been emitted on the day the tree was cut. And the sum of those cut trees are then included in national inventories and also fed into the climate models as an anthropogenic emission.
If the IPCC had bothered to consult with any group of experts on forest management they would have discovered that the trees that are removed from a forest are generally those mature stems that are about to start rotting from inside. They may continue growing for many decades but the growth on the outside of the tree will be matched by the rotting inside.
So the removal of the tree and its conversion into stable long lasting products will effectively postpone the decay that the tree would have undergone for many decades. Recent reports indicate that even woodchips and mill waste that have been converted to newspaper have been found in near perfect condition after 50 years in a landfill.
The forestry experts would also have informed the IPCC that the remaining trees in the forest will eagerly boost their growth to capture the sunlight, water and nutrients that belonged to the harvested tree. And while it may take 80 to 100 years for a single seedling to grow to sawlog size, it will only take 20 to 25 years for the four nearest adolescent trees to absorb the same amount of carbon and fill up the gap in the canopy.
So all over the world, the IPCC is counting one set of emissions that has not even taken place and ignoring an equal volume of carbon sequestration by new growth in old forests. And on top of that they continue to assume an equal volume of natural emissions through rotting that has been postponed for more than half a century.
The net effect of all this is to overstate the emissions from forests by a factor of three.
Just to give some indication of the scale of the fluxes in natural CO2 that are wrongly given as a constant in climate models is the treatment of the worlds forests. To my knowledge the IPCC held zero consultation with the forest industries and all their experts before making their determinations on how wood based CO2 would be accounted for.
So at the moment all the worlds forests are deemed to be climax forests that emit as much CO2 through decay as they absorb through growth. And from this assumption they then concluded that any removal of a tree from any forest produces a net emission. And, with a few exceptions, the carbon in that tree is deemed to have been emitted on the day the tree was cut. And the sum of those cut trees are then included in national inventories and also fed into the climate models as an anthropogenic emission.
If the IPCC had bothered to consult with any group of experts on forest management they would have discovered that the trees that are removed from a forest are generally those mature stems that are about to start rotting from inside. They may continue growing for many decades but the growth on the outside of the tree will be matched by the rotting inside.
So the removal of the tree and its conversion into stable long lasting products will effectively postpone the decay that the tree would have undergone for many decades. Recent reports indicate that even woodchips and mill waste that have been converted to newspaper have been found in near perfect condition after 50 years in a landfill.
The forestry experts would also have informed the IPCC that the remaining trees in the forest will eagerly boost their growth to capture the sunlight, water and nutrients that belonged to the harvested tree. And while it may take 80 to 100 years for a single seedling to grow to sawlog size, it will only take 20 to 25 years for the four nearest adolescent trees to absorb the same amount of carbon and fill up the gap in the canopy.
So all over the world, the IPCC is counting one set of emissions that has not even taken place and ignoring an equal volume of carbon sequestration by new growth in old forests. And on top of that they continue to assume an equal volume of natural emissions through rotting that has been postponed for more than half a century.
The net effect of all this is to overstate the emissions from forests by a factor of three.
Yep it’s up on all the notice boards next to the Dilberts. Standard Lavoisier/WMC bilge. Yawn. I’m surprised they haven’t updated their cheat sheet – a high school student could demolish this stuff by now.
Prize for the one coming up with most porkies. “Where’s Wally!”.
Sigh – it’s a pity for Ian that have used real atmospheric measurements so his whole rant is irrelevant. zzzzzz
In short it is believed that a small increase in anthrogenic CO2 (4% of total CO2 emissions per year) causes exaggerated effects in the behaviour of water vapour and cloud formation, therevy causing a catastrophic rise in the atmosphere’s mean temperature, (while ignoring the earth itself, a thermally far more important factor than the air, and of course, space itself).
Except no one has yet been able to model cloud behaviour, so the deductions based on climate sensitivity are nothing more than artfully derived guesses.
That maniacs like the Greens or communists peddle this pseudoscience should come as no surprise.
Hence Luke’s totally predictable ad hominem directed at Ian Mott.
Which means Luke has actually lost the argument.
I was one of the scientists named in Peter Walsh’s introduction as being in attendance. The interesting thing about Canberra that day was the hail that was still a foot thick in places eight hours after the storm the night before. Martin Ferguson’s address to the gathering was also interesting. He said that Labor was going to wait for clean coal technology to come along before doing anything to the coal industry. So Flannery/Brown have neutralised CO2 as an issue by taking an extreme position.
The good news is that I have quantified the CO2 effect:
Atmosph. Temperature
CO2 Increase
in ppm in °C
Pre-industrial Level 280
Current Level 380 0.13
In 2070 480 0.10
In 2130 580 0.08
That’s right, from here 100 ppm is worth about 0.1 degrees C. I can live with that, and I can live with the next 100 ppm too.
David,
have you had your calculations reviewed by anyone? Just asking.
David Archibald,
Care to pop over and defend your paper?
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html
Also, I’ll post a complete debunking of all 9 Ray Evans ‘facts’ tomorrow evening.
I must admit I find it amazing that anyone who considers themselves skeptical is pulled in by this rubbish. It does your ‘side’ far more harm than good.
SJT, I have seen some incredibly stupid statements in my time but this one is a corker.
“As to water vapour, it is not a forcing. It is part of the feedback mechanism of warming. Take away the heat, and the water vapour disappears. CO2, in contrast, does not. It persists, and acts as a greenhouse gas as long as the earth is radiating heat. More CO2, more heat trapped”.
For water vapour to not be a forcing it would need to be absent during cooling. It is present at various temperatures therefore it can most certainly be a forcing.
This line, “take away the heat and the water vapour disappears” leaves me wondering which planet you have been orbiting of late. Take away the sunlight, however, and the formation of water vapour does decline, but it does not disappear.
If you take a look at this graph of Dew Point at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point
you will see that your suggestion that “take away the heat and the water vapour disappears” really only applies where temperatures are below -30C.
Note that even at temperatures as low as -30C water vapour remains capable of being more abundant than CO2 which is only 0.038%.
The key question is, will water vapour form when CO2 is not present? Of course it will. It is a direct consequence of insolation meeting water in any part of the planet with a temperature above -30C. Get used to it.
Ian
take a running jump at yourself.
Remember Nexus you only get a prize if you nail 9 porkies.
Despair not SJT – if Ian doesn’t know why water vapour is a feedback of considerable importance we’ll just leave him with it. He may have discovered Jack’s beanstalk. Anything to spin the drongo-meter. 🙂
If a small increase in temperature caused by CO2 is posited to result in a much greater increase due to a positive feedback by water vapour, why does the latter not result in an ongoing self-reinforcing runaway GH effect? Quite obviously something must prevent this. Until that limiting process is identified and quantized any projection of a positive feedback from water vapour is entirely speculation.
One could just as reasonably posit a negative feedback via increased cloud cover.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142
Water vapour: feedback or forcing?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/busy-week-for-water-vapor/
Busy week for water vapour!
mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/01/water-vapour-is-not-dominant.html
Water vapour is not the dominant greenhouse gas.
If you strip out the rhetorical stuff much of Sir Arvi’s sciencey stuff can be reasonably dismissed. I would share his concern however as to what to do about the issue in an economic and social context. But does playing politically advance this debate or sustain the polarisation and entrenchment of each side. Progress ??
Spoken like a true champion of informed debate, SJT.
The facts are that any expansion in the area of ocean, lake or soil moisture will produce climate forcing. One of the most likely of these events would have been the flooding of Mediteranean waters into the Black Sea that is thought to have produced the flood associated with Noah in biblical times.
This would have produced a major forcing of water vapour due to a substantial increase in the area of ocean. It may well have triggered the warming recorded in those times.
By far the biggest water vapour climate forcing event would have to be the major expansion of irrigated agriculture schemes onto arid lands over the past half century. These schemes, in Australia, the USSR, the USA and many other parts of the world, wherever Dams have been built, have had the effect of changing evaporative potential from levels as low as 400mm/year to 1400mm and more.
So we have created vast tracts of land that now have evaporative potential that is very close to that of oceans.
So we have the absurd situation where the Climate Cretins are scaring the kids with stories of altered albedo and methane burps in the Arctic circle (where solar angle is 45% at best and zero at worst) and dew points are lower than 0.5% moisture at best.
Meanwhile, massive irrigation schemes in the temperate and tropical zones where dew points are as high as 3% have not even made it into the climate models. And these clowns want to drive our destiny?
By the way, did anyone notice how SJT slipped the real porky into his logic. He took away the heat for water vapour but left the heat in for CO2. Good one fella. Does that mean the voices are back in your head again?
A standard RC fudge again, Luke.
“Making some allowance (+/-5%) for the crudeness of my calculation, the maximum supportable number for the importance of water vapour alone is about 60-70% and for water plus clouds 80-90% of the present day greenhouse effect. (Of course, using the same approach, the maximum supportable number for CO2 is 20-30%, and since that adds up to more than 100%, there is a slight problem with such estimates!)”.
Yes, the “slight” problem is that we get a cumulative 120% instead of 100% but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone using the full number for CO2 while leaving all the adjustments to water vapour.
No wonder these models need a good hose down on a regular basis. Try doing that with your mortgage yield tables.
But wait, there is more.
“Some scientists have argued that changes to irrigation and other land use changes (which effect evaporation) are also direct forcings to water vapour amounts, but I think it’s cleaner to think of that as an indirect water vapour response to the change”.
Now that is a really novel approach to science. We’ll just leave things out to make it “cleaner”.
I guess we could call this an “inconvenient truth”, eh Phlukey?
So what RC are suggesting is that we modify our thoughts to the extent that building dams and irrigating crops are an indirect response to hydrocarbon emissions. And how is that different to a delusion?
Note the way RC are able to dismiss the role of water vapour because it is part of a cycle of evaporation and precipitation that generally lasts form 10 to 30 days. But this only reinforces the importance of irrigation type climate forcings because they create a whole sequence of new water vapour cycles that were not there before or have been augmented or speeded up by the forcing.
At least we now have some pretty solid evidence that Climate Cretins are barking mad. And quite capable of excluding relevant facts when they get in the way of a good model.
It’s interesting that rabid property rights nutters suffer from so much myopia. I think the true cretins are increasingly obvious.
In terms of albedo feedbacks on the Artic – well it’s already happening in summer and that methane released might just happen to blow around the world.
BOM and CSIRO (2004), The Rainfall response to permanent inland water in Australia, Australian Meteorology Magazine, 53, 251-262, March, 2004 http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/downloads.aspx?file=7873544F7372482F626E66715171744C504B4E69464430704C323332757850313252537852437742677A4C43394E6D3273392F61527744715835584A6C6D4146
Diddly squat impact.
So the clowns and blowhards that purport to represent landholders (but being unelected really don’t – and are they even supported by Agforce, QFF or NFF??) are actually subverting the interests of their supposed constituency by engaging in dishonest time-wasting debates on climate change. Having failed to look after their colleagues interests in vegetation management, carbon rights, now onto buggering up climate risk. Time to clean them out and get some true blue patriotic intelligent representation that are interested in building a positive future in a changing world instead of trying to turn the clock back to 1950.
Ian your retort on water vapour was nothing short of imbecilic. Enough from me today.
Ian
You resort to barefaced insults, and then resort to sarcasm when I object. Look in the mirror, Ian.
Luke seriously expects us to accept a report on the impact of inland water bodies on rainfall (in a high pressure belt) as some sort of surrogate for a discussion on temperature change. And then bales out altogether.
A permanently full Lake Eyre was never going to boost rainfall in the inland because it is in the same sort of high pressure band as North Africa where the Red Sea makes minimal contribution to Egyptian rainfall. Any evaporation from a full Lake Eyre would only produce additional rainfall if there was a high mountain chain to its west that lowered air temperatures to the point of condensation. This is nothing new but what is new is Luke’s attempt at implying that this was what I was claiming.
Any evaporation that does take place in these zones doesn’t simply disappear. It remains in the atmosphere and is transported to other locations where low pressures improve the chances of condensation.
But what Luke is eager to distract attention from is the fact that water in soils and farm dams increase heat absorption and reduce albedo and thereby contribute to a warmer climate.
And it is worth noting that the main argument in the report on inland lakes etc is that any results were entirely within the normal range of outcomes and could not be distinguished from normal events. Curiously, this is the very same criticism often levelled at the IPCC and the modellers. That is, the claimed evidence of global warming is still within the normal range of events.
So the real reason Luke and SJT are so conspicuously baling out is that we have clear evidence, via Real Climate, that relevant climate forcings are being left out of the models. As if we needed any more.
However, there is one fact that cannot be fudged by the climate cretins. And that is the fact that if water is available in a desert then it will evaporate. The fact that it may not fall back onto that desert does not mean that the evaporated water has not formed water vapour. But that is exactly what Luke has tried to imply.
And the fact that the climate models produce an overlapping effect with cumulative forcing of 120% means that there is a high degree of redundancy in climate forcing. That is, if the job of warming gets done by a supply of water vapour then some of the CO2 has no effect.
This is in the same way that a drop of rain can form around a speck of dust, ash or other airborn particulate matter. But if there is enough dust for the available water vapour then only a fool would model additional rain for the specks of ash.
But that is what the IPCC appear to have accepted as “best practice” climate modelling.
Where did I bail out? I just refused to debate you since you were incapable of making a response to me without starting off with insults. Take a look at yourself.
Ian remains a goober and cretin himself having not read any of the material supplied. And you obviously are now writing in sanskrit – it’s about as intelligent.
If you read the paper they’ve found the macroscale influences world-wide appear to dominate relatively small scale irrigation system effects.
Ian try something new – sit down and read what you’ve been provided with – then attempt to say something slightly intelligent rather than ridiculous. We know you can do better than this tedious belligerent attitude on every subject.
“what the IPCC appear to have accepted” – Ian you just pulled that out of your arse which is about as good as lobbyists get I’m afraid. Fast and loose with the truth and always trying it on.
If you had read some of the material you would have noted circumstances where the measured greenhouse flux is having an amplification effect with surface water vapour. Perhaps a little advanced for you at this stage.
Luke says “Where did I bail out? I just refused to debate you”
funny stuff
Paul Borg can’t even get a simple fact right. LOL.
We look back over some of the insults dumped on me by Luke and SJT and they have the nerve to cry foul. Lets face it guys you have been thoroughly trounced on the issue of water vapour.
Luke in particular has been routinely dumping on me for having the gall to mention that landuse change and irrigation etc are a climate warming activity and he then provides a link to a real climate post that confirms that many climate scientists agree that these activities are forcings.
And the quote from RC that they will just modify their thinking to regard this forcing as a form of “indirect feedback” is a breathtaking insight into the kind of professional standards at play in the climate mafia.
And this lame defence of his Lake Eyre diversion attempt merely provides additional evidence of how high and dry he has stranded himself. Of course “macro-scale” climate events have greater influence than localised or micro-scale events. Macro-scale events usually do. But both Luke and the BOM are past masters of stating the bleeding obvious as if it were some kind of breakthrough.
Ian
I thought I had tried to avoid calling your posts the most extreme examples of stupidity I have ever seen. Could you point out where I have slipped up?
Ian – I really don’t see your point.
Perhaps the atmosphere and its interaction with the land and ocean surface may be a tad complex.
There are issues of albedo, surface roughness and stomatal conductance that are modelled. Wet surfaces provide evaporative cooling.
However an individual irrigation area does not seem to have enough influence to greatly affect the climate nearby. This is what has been observed.
In terms of the RC posts on water vapour – there’s a fair bit in them and they’ve gone out of their way to explain issues and why they think they’re right from observations too. So what is the actual problem.
Now all you seem to have come back with is they’re “cretins” and there’s a mafia and so on. In all honesty that vey unaccomodating, aggressive and belittling of a reasonably distinguished group of scientists. There are very sites on the AGW issue that attempt to get into the nitty gritty of the climate science. Climateaudit also do a job too but I get very peeved with the cheer squad style of utterly abusive comments – hardly discursive. Pielke would be the other one of some note.
In terms of insults – well be nice Ian and we’ll be nice back. It’s pretty basic.
I can’t believe how Luke can say, “However an individual irrigation area does not seem to have enough influence to greatly affect the climate nearby. This is what has been observed”.
Because if I were to say, “however an individual coal burning power station does not seem to have enough influence to greatly affect the climate nearby”. Then we all know exactly what sort of response he would give to my observations.
He would scream about cumulative impacts and how we all contribute, blah blah, and finish off with a stream of invective. But the fact that he could make such a statement in a discussion about water based climate forcings makes it abundantly clear that he has a very keen set of ideological blinkers. He has two entirely inconsistent standards that can switch in an instant.
And spare me the promises of considerate treatment fellas, I cop it in buckets every time I ask a simple question. Just accept the fact that you are enemy combatants and I will only discuss peace with my foot on your throat.
Err – not quite – the invective only occurs from you starting it and being insulting, not from the questions you ask being challenging or against some “ideology”.
As for enemy combatants – I’m not conspiring to take anything away from you or to affect your material status – we’re just arguing the science. What gets done about it is up to the government executive or business interests in the end. There is no ground to be taken except the intellectual ground of being right or wrong. i.e. I’m not after your trees or your land ! And we can argue the science politely or rudely. You prefer rudely as you think it’s a class struggle.
As someone said recently – doesn’t it shit you having to work your entire life on behalf of these ungrateful pricks trying to get solutions to complex issues only to be abused. It’s enough to make you a bit mouthy and rude. But anyway it’s a free country, and we chose what we do or are so useless to do anything else .. ..
Back to power plants. There is no inconsistency – (well actually I could be pendantic and say the CO2 effect does cause extra plant growth nearby or the aerosols do something – but we’ll skip that) – yes the power station’s CO2 does little nearby. That’s OK. It’s the cumulative concentration in the atmosphere that’s the big radiative forcing issue overall.
I’m surprised on the irrigation area effect but happy enough to take their word for it at this stage that the macroscale influences tend to swamp any signal that it imparts to nearby regions.
Now I put it again that the water vapour story if fairly complex – if you did seriously read all the articles I linked on water vapour – well you must be highly intelligent to (a) get it all in one and (b) independently critique it aggressively with one hand behind your back.
In the end Ian – I just want to know whether these guys have got it right or not. (or pretty right with known issues).
At some point I’m giving it all away and going home.
Luke said, “I’m surprised on the irrigation area effect but happy enough to take their word for it at this stage that the macroscale influences tend to swamp any signal that it imparts to nearby regions”.
But if the same research was conducted on a coal fired power plant, would you be happy enough to “take their word for it that the macroscale influences swamp any signal that it imparts to nearby regions”?
Obviously not. And therein lies the problem.
Yes I’d be happy on the power station argument. The CO2 disperses around the world. Some (x?) may be gobbled up by nearby vegetation etc.
Of course you are happy with the power station argument, Luke. But that is because you are asking the wrong question, and so has the Lake Eyre paper.
That paper was answering the question, would the permanent flooding of Lake Eyre produce a significant change in the climate of Continental Australia?
One does not need a detailed model to work that out because a quick look at the size of the lake in relation to the size of the continent and the surrounding oceans makes it very clear that the macro impact will be minimal. This is particularly so in respect of ENSO events.
If you thought I was a bit hasty in considering this paper it was because I have been examining this issue for some time and was already up to speed on the issues.
It was also clear that the catchment scale cycling study was of limited value because Lake Eyre catchment is a particularly leaky one with prevailing winds delivering evaporation to the west and outside the catchment for most of the year. But it did confirm my conclusions that most macro benefit would flow to western SA and Eastern WA with minimal direct benefit to the Lake catchment or the Murray Darling.
But the most relevant information in the paper was slightly outside the scope of it’s inquiry. That is, when Lake Eyre is full the pan evaporation rate in adjacent areas drops from 3300mm per annum to 1800mm. And this is also associated with significant drops in daily maximum temperatures and rises in nightime minimums.
So localised water vapour obviously increases significantly. As will the localised water vapour in a similar sized irrigation area.
And the issue is not whether the irrigation area, or flooded lake, is capable of producing significant changes on a macro climatic scale. Rather, the changes in a set of local climates have their own small impact on global means.
If the current mean temperature for Australia includes a whole set of evenly spaced data points, of which a certain number are located within the local influence of Lake Eyre, then clearly, the continental mean is influenced by a dry or wet lake and a partially irrigated landscape on a scale commensurate to their mathematical significance in the size of the sample.
And it is worth noting that the downstream influences can also be significant but difficult to isolate. For example, the worst bushfire events in southern Australia appear to coincide with isobars leading directly from this dryest part of the country. And if a full lake can drop evaporation potential from 3300mm to 1800mm then it can also have a very significant impact on the character, scale and intensity of bushfires and their resulting enviro-climatic outcomes.
It may not show up in the rainfall data but the impact on climate can still be significant. One should also be aware of the impact of lower evaporative potential on crop water use and water use efficiency. These are the demand side considerations that are not limited to agriculture. Much of the arid zone vegetation is actually more dependent on dew fall and variations in humidity than it is on rainfall but these are not considered in the study.
But thanks for the link anyway as it does provide some interesting leads.
I don’t disagree.
But it is important for GCMs to add up as much of all the little landscape features and bits and pieces as possible. So active research area helped by remote sensing. The flip side question is whether severe droughts have a disproportinate “reinforcement” effect. Unscientiific but I think there’s some in it (land surface feedback)
So do you now accept that introduced water can play the role of a climate forcing? And that an accumulation of these local forcings can, in certain cases, have a marginal influence on macro scale climate?
And on land surface feedback in drought, I agree, it is quite possible.
The other important point about landuse based forcings is that they are generally long lasting. I understand that the dam built at Saba in Saudi Arabia by the biblical Queen of Sheeba lasted 1400 years so such a forcing would have a much greater impact than an emission of CO2 that may last only 50 years.
The dams and irrigation works of the Snowy Hydro Scheme have already outlived any carbon emitted in their construction. In fact the only impediment to their continued local climate forcing is posed by government policy to reduce the volume of water captured by the scheme.
Well the problem is quite complex.
You also have circulation patterns/systems swirling things about – moving air masses over space and time, quasi-periodic behaviour like El Nino; perhaps decadal influences like Pacific Decadal, Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations (unless they’re red noise); souther annular mode – ozone; solar, aerosol, CO2 and water vapour radiative forcings; latent heat issues of evaporation and albedo from the geography, land use, and land use changes. Small scale intense features like hurricanes.
The great problem with all dams is that the logs submerged are a long term source of methane. Bubble bubble. Pop Pop.
Do Hydroelectric Dams Mitigate Global Warming? The Case of Brazil’s CuruÁ-una Dam
Author: Fearnside, Philip1
Source: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Volume 10, Number 4, October 2005, pp. 675-691(17)
Hydroelectric dams in tropical forest areas emit greenhouse gases, as illustrated by the Curuá-Una Dam in the Amazonian portion of Brazil. Emissions include carbon dioxide from decay of the above-water portions of trees that are left standing in the reservoir and methane from soft vegetation that decays under anaerobic conditions on the bottom of the reservoir, especially macrophytes (water weeds) and vegetation that grows in the drawdown zone and is flooded when the reservoir water level rises. Some methane is released from the reservoir surface through bubbling and diffusion, but larger amounts are released from water passing through the turbines and spillway. Methane concentration in the water increases with depth, and the turbines and spillway draw water from sufficient depth to have substantial methane content. In 1990 (13 years after filling), the Curuá-Una Dam emitted 3.6 times more greenhouse gases than would have been emitted by generating the same amount of electricity from oil.
But that was naughty to introduce methane – even though a major issue – but ignoring that and back to your point – yes the land use changes make permanent effect which all add up and become part of the background albedo and latent heat balance.
But here’s where I disagree – the CO2 produced by the construction of the Snowy Scheme we assume was considerable (non-trivial at least). Some will have been absorbed into the biosphere and oceans. But a big slug of it is still in the atmosphere too as part of the slow but ongoing increase in CO2 levels.
So part of our ongoing warming is due to the Snowy Dam CO2 construction emissions. It has not “repayed” its debt. CO2 emission levels from humans terra-forming the planet have been outstripping the capacity of terrstrial and oceanic sinks to absorb since the industrial revolution. Some might even say since the beginning of land clearing for agriculture. If you add in methane I suspect a not too good story for major water impoundments.
So with an appropriate model you could run 1000 years integration GCM run with and without your features and see what changes it makes locally and globally. Without such long term studies I think the complexity is to hard to resolve.
But be careful what you wish for – some preliminary runs on land clearing impacts have already been done !
http://www.bom.gov.au/events/anzcf2004/anzcf2004.pdf
Climate Impacts of Australian
Land Cover Change
Peter Lawrence1, Jozef Syktus2, Clive McAlpine3 and Steve Crimp2
1Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, United States of America
2 Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, Brisbane, Queensland
3Department of Geographical Sciences & Planning, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland
Australian land cover has been significantly altered since European settlement, primarily for agricultural
utilisation, with native vegetation widely replaced or modified for cropping and intensive animal production.
While there have been numerous investigations into the regional and near surface climate impacts of
Australian land cover change, these investigations have not included the climate impacts of larger-scale
changes in atmospheric circulation and their associated feedbacks, or the impacts of longer-term soil
moisture feedbacks. In this research the CSIRO T63/L18 AGCM forced with observed SSTs for period 1969
to 2002 was used to investigate the climate impacts of Australian land cover change.
To avoid the common problem of overstating the magnitude and spatial extent of changes in land
surface conditions prescribed in GCM land cover change experiments, the current Australian land surface
properties were described from finer-scale, satellite derived land cover datasets, with land surface conditions
extrapolating from remnant native vegetation to pre-clearing extents to recreate the pre-clearing land
surface properties. Aggregation rules were applied to the fine-scale data to generate the land surface
parameters of the GCM, ensuring the equivalent sub-grid heterogeneity and land surface bio-geophysics
were captured in both the current and pre-clearing land surface parameters.
The differences in climate simulated in the pre-clearing and current experiments were analysed for changes
in Australian continental and regional climate to assess the modelled climate impacts of Australian land cover
change. The changes in modelled climate were compared to observed changes in Australian precipitation
over the last 50 years to assess whether modelled results could be detected in the historical record.
The Australian continental and regional analyses demonstrated that Australian land cover change did
have statistically significant impacts on air temperature and precipitation simulated in the CSIRO GCM.
The statistically significant DJF warming and drying modelled over south east Queensland, with causal
links back to historical land cover change in the region, corresponded with strong drying trends over the
last 50 years for the region. As this region and the areas to the north and west, continue to be actively
cleared, this has significant implications for land use management planning in Queensland.
The statistically significant increase in JJA precipitation modelled over south-west Western Australia was
opposite to the observed drying trends identified from 50 year analyses of observed precipitation. This
result was significant for the region, as it demonstrated that the increased JJA latent heat fluxes over
agricultural land had the potential to increase cloud cover and precipitation. This finding supported field
studies and satellite observations over the region that showed winter latent heat fluxes were higher over
agricultural land than over adjacent native vegetation, and preferentially formed cumulus clouds with
higher water content over the agricultural land. The modelling results therefore suggest the strong drying
trend over south-west Western Australia has been in response to other climatic forcing, rather than from
historical land cover change.
ABSTRACTS
The global analysis identified global scale changes in atmospheric circulation responding to the changes
in circulation around Australia. A change in the DJF Australian monsoon flow appeared to influence the
wind flow across the Indian and Pacific oceans, with impacts on air temperature and precipitation in
Asia, Europe and North America, as well as in Australia. The changes in cloud cover, soil moisture and
snow cover over these areas resulted in larger changes in surface fluxes than occurred over the regions of
Australian land cover change. A northward shift in JJA mid latitude westerly wind flow around Australia,
had impacts over Australia and further to the north, resulting in a northward shift and increased flow in
the JJA Asian monsoon. The increased Asian monsoon flow impacted the wind flow and circulation over
the Indian and Pacific oceans, with impacts on air temperature, and precipitation over Asia, Europe and
North America. Again the changes in cloud cover and soil moisture over these areas resulted in larger
changes in surface fluxes than occurred over the regions of Australia land cover change.
Further:
http://www.tiimes.ucar.edu/highlights/fy06/bonan.html
ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2005/techprogram/paper_86014.htm
Hmmmnn, so they modelled current non-firestick wooded landscapes as a pre-1750 surrogate and current non-wooded land. The SEQ study would not have included regrowth rates if they claim the area is still being net cleared.
Re the snowy dams, my understanding was that atmospheric CO2 broke down by 50 years so it could not still be up there now.
Which does raise the issue of how valid this assumption is. Do you know the actual process, or processes involved in this breaking down, particularly with respect to triggers?
Ian – yes the land use change work is prototypical in my opinion and not yet mature in the Australian context. So wouldn’t get too revved up (yet). But just illustrating that such notions and studies are getting possible. So was in the context of a heads-up more than anything. And in the context of “be careful what you wish for”.
Frankly I would have thought macroscale influences would swamp the local signals but I may be dead wrong too. i.e. clouds on the wheat belt/scrub boundary of the WA wheat belt. Clouds over the remnant scrub but not over the wheat paddocks. A cloud fence-line effect. Also valleys in the Burnett where it doesn’t seem to rain anymore that are totally cleared. And does the Forty Mile Scrub near Mt Garnett in north Queensland get more rain and why? See these last three as more muses than assertions. This land use feedback stuff is pretty interesting actually.
If we were any good of course you’d try to put it all the factors in !
On CO2 lifetime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
(good rave on water vapour forcing/feedback in longer article too)
Excerpt follows:
Two scales can be used to describe the effect of different gases in the atmosphere. The first, the atmospheric lifetime, describes how long it takes to restore the system to equilibrium following a small increase in the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere. Individual molecules may interchange with other reservoirs such as soil, the oceans, and biological systems, but the mean lifetime refers to the decaying away of the excess. It is sometimes erroneously claimed that the atmospheric lifetime of CO2 is only a few years because that is the average time for any CO2 molecule to stay in the atmosphere before being removed by mixing into the ocean, uptake by photosynthesis, or other processes. This ignores the balancing fluxes of CO2 into the atmosphere from the other reservoirs. It is the net concentration changes of the various greenhouse gases by all sources and sinks that determines atmospheric lifetime, not just the removal processes.
The second scale is global warming potential (GWP). The GWP depends on both the efficiency of the molecule as a greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime. GWP is measured relative to the same mass of CO2 and evaluated for a specific timescale. Thus, if a molecule has a high GWP on a short time scale (say 20 years) but has only a short lifetime, it will have a large GWP on a 20 year scale but a small one on a 100 year scale. Conversely, if a molecule has a longer atmospheric lifetime than CO2 its GWP will increase with time.
Examples of the atmospheric lifetime and GWP for several greenhouse gases include:
CO2 has a variable atmospheric lifetime (approximately 200-450 years for small perturbations). Recent work indicates that recovery from a large input of atmospheric CO2 from burning fossil fuels will result in an effective lifetime of tens of thousands of years.[17][18] Carbon dioxide is defined to have a GWP of 1 over all time periods.
Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12 ± 3 years and a GWP of 62 over 20 years, 23 over 100 years and 7 over 500 years. The decrease in GWP associated with longer times is associated with the fact that the methane is degraded to water and CO2 by chemical reactions in the atmosphere.
Nitrous oxide has an atmospheric lifetime of 120 years and a GWP of 296 over 100 years.
CFC-12 has an atmospheric lifetime of 100 years and a GWP(100) of 10600.
HCFC-22 has an atmospheric lifetime of 12.1 years and a GWP(100) of 1700.
Tetrafluoromethane has an atmospheric lifetime of 50,000 years and a GWP(100) of 5700.
Sulfur hexafluoride has an atmospheric lifetime of 3,200 years and a GWP(100) of 22000.
It is the difference between the life of individual molecules and the assumed life of the excess, and the behaviour of other reservoirs, that need some immediate attention.
I have often repeated my concerns about harvested wood being recorded as an emission while it is still in stable form in a house or landfill. But other issues like the assumption that the harvested forest remains in a balance of emission and sequestration are equally relevant.
The evidence is overwhelming that the emissions from decay have been excluded by the removal of the mature trees before they start decaying. And the evidence is equally overwhelming that the growth of retained stems will equal the removed volume within a decade or two.
It is also the case that forests that are cleared were also in an original state of balanced emission and sequestration which is generally maintained after clearing with new regrowth and continuation of the slow decay of the cleared wood volume. And this means that the assumed emission from land use change has not had a balancing sequence of sequestration events after the fact.
The same applies to soil carbon.
And as all these false assumptions have been applied to the vast area of planetary forests which are nearly all either still part of, or were part of, a forestry purpose, then we must conclude that the assumed life of CO2 in the models is wrong and significantly overstated.
And as this life of CO2 is overstated then the cumulative effect of CO2 emissions will be compounding to ever more unrealistic levels as the projection interval gets longer.
I think you need to distinguish between the agony that occurs over Inventory and Kyoto type frameworks and what happens with climate models. They are separate areas in many respects.
We know the fingerprint of the additional atmospheric CO2 and it has fossil fuel written all over it.
So yes it makes a big difference for offsets, carbon trading, national inventories, your farm etc.
You can observe SBSTA is making representations for more complexity and reality in forestry accounting and against the current position of expedience and compromise. So the current position may change.
But climate models simply use projected patterns of overall global CO2 growth in the atmosphere. There is a big range in the SRES scenarios already. So do your concerns move these growth curves around that much – is the range of variation already covered by the current scenarios anyway? Would your concerns make the future global CO2 scenarios higher or much lower in an environment already substantially determined by fossil fuel use?
Well, if 19% of current global emissions are Land Use Change, and these are premature measurements of future emissions, and they don’t include any credit for postponed emissions from decaying biomass, and we factor in all the worlds native forestry emissions, deduct long term storage, deduct postponed emissions from decay, and add credits for new sequestration at proper growth rates, then there is every indication that current modelled emission inputs are overstated by 25%.
And that means all the scenarios start at a point that is 25% higher than actual. And it also means that the most important scenario, the one based on the realistic potential to manage vegetation for maximum carbon utility, has been left out altogether.
My understanding is that most modelled scenarios under IPCC have started with their own picture of current situation (the wrong one) and have projected various levels of increment in those initial relationships. That is, GDP grows by x amount therefore all factors vary in the same proportions.
The reliability of future projections is substantially reduced if the current situation, the initial inputs, are also unreliable.
ummm – but we know what the current situation is – it’s the current atmospheric concentration of CO2 – now 390 ppm and it’s going up up up with last few years rate increasing (2%).
http://www.reuters.com/article/gc06/idUSL162759420070216
So we do know the the starting point and that it’s increasing. Surely there’s no argument about that.
You also have to be holistic Ian – the capacity of the ocean to sink CO2 is going to reduce in the future.
But leaving that aside – how much of your 19% is wrong – 19%? 1% 2% 5% 10% – does it make a major global difference to the SRES modelling outcomes – maybe delay things a bit or is it major. How many degrees are in it?
Ian Castles has argued some of the economics isn’t correct (MER/PPP issue) but the physicists came back with – does it make much difference to the SRES scenario range.
The BIG unknown is whether humanity does something serious about CO2 or not. Maybe we’ll get serious. Maybe we’ll go berserk.
Now having said all that the impact of carbon accounting rules can make a major difference to anyone’s local business. But is that more carbon storage politics than climate science.
Anyway SBSTA should get into them and get it sorted. I reckon do it properly. But if so – pls nobody complain about the paperwork and cost of compliance/audits. (i.e. veg management act revisited).
SBSTA – Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice.
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2005/sbsta/eng/inf07.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change
Also worth noting these approaches discussed above pdf.
In the IPCC default approach, only the net change in forest carbon stocks is accounted for.
Emissions from harvests are treated as though they are 100% released as CO2 to the atmosphere
in the year and country of harvest. Carbon storage in wood products is not considered.
The atmospheric flow approach tracks C emissions and removals associated with the harvest,
manufacturing, and consumption of wood products within national boundaries. Its intent is
similar to the general methodology for estimating fossil fuel emissions and provides a more
accurate reflection of when and where harvest emissions actually occur.
The stock-change approach accounts only for the net carbon stock change in the domestic
wood product reservoir, e.g. HWP-C in all long-lived commodities within the national territory,
after imports and exports. The difference between the stock-change and atmospheric flow
accounting lies in the treatment of exported products (which are significant in Canada). In the
stock-change, carbon in all exported wood products and commodities exits the domestic stock
and hence is considered an emission to the atmosphere.
The production approach accounts for the changes in carbon stocks of domestically harvested
wood and commodities derived from this domestic wood, regardless of their actual location.
The accounting boundaries hence encompass the entire export market.
The simple-decay approach also accounts the delayed emissions from all HWP-C from
domestically harvested wood, but in a simplified way, by applying decay curves standardized
by product categories.”
I am off now for some vitamin F(arm). Back Monday.
I believe the 2006 IPCC guidelines recommend more realistic full decay model accounting. Not sure whether NCAS has implemented.