Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

What to Listen to, and Read, This Week

By

1. Michael Duffy in Conversation with Stewart Franks

This afternoon at 4pm the very clever climate scientist Stewart Franks will be on ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint in conversation with Michael Duffy.  Make sure you listen in.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/default.htm

2. Bronwyn Herbert asks why there is no water in Lake Eucumbene

Sometime this week I am hoping the ABC TV 7.30 Report will feature a story from Bronwyn Herbert on the mismanagement of Snowy Hydro waters.    

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/

And the story started at this blog, scroll here, http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/tag/snowy-hydro/

3. Graham Young on enlightenment values and gay marriage

My advertising revenue, which would add up to about $7,000 per year at current readership levels (nearly 20,000 page views each week), has plummeted because of a boycott of On Line Opinion and Domain blogs (of which I am one) by activists within the gay lobby.

Graham Young explains today:

“We published a series of articles on gay marriage after we were approached by Rodney Croome calling for a conscience vote on gay marriage, and in the context of the Prime Minister urging all parliamentarians to go out and consult with their electorates on the issue.  It is important to us that we cover the ambit of arguments as much as possible, so of course we approached writers from all sides, and received submissions from many more…

“For 11 years On Line Opinion has been my passion. It’s been my passion because I’m a child of the Enlightenment and I was raised to believe that not only do people have a right to an opinion, but they have a responsibility to continually test and examine that opinion in the light of what others think and believe…

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11583

It was Graham Young who got me blogging, and who has insisted I keep blogging.

4.  And More

Later this week I plan to post part 2 from Luke Walker on finding that AGW signal (amongst all the natural climatic variability) and part 4 from Max Talbot on Snowy Hydro.

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Consider this an Open Thread and I will try for the same each Monday.
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. John Sayers says

    Thanks Jen – I will listen to counterpoint as usual.

    There was a wonderful reply to Mike Carlton’s weekend dummy spit in the SMH. Worth posting here IMO.

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/flatearthers-its-time-for-a-cold-shower-20110204-1agt8.html

    As Mike Carlton notes, it certainly has been a dramatic year for the weather ( ”Flat-earthers, it’s time for a cold shower”, February 5-6), but before we lose our heads,

    a quick look at the record books indicates things have been as bad or worse in the past.

    At the risk of being labelled a heretic, 1918, for instance, saw two cyclones kill more than a hundred people in north Queensland; both were more intense than cyclone Yasi. There were record floods in eastern Australia, including the great Rockhampton flood that saw the Fitzroy River rise to its highest level.

    There were notable floods also in New Zealand, Germany, England, and Africa. Meanwhile, heatwaves swept Australia (Sydney, Victoria, Perth, Brisbane), and Pennsylvania; and droughts occurred in Australia, Norway, India, North America, Brazil and Africa. Blizzards affected the eastern United States with the ”coldest weather in history”.

    There were also snowstorms in New Zealand, Argentina and in Europe, and tornadoes destroyed towns in the US.

    Space limits a wider examination, but I think readers will get the point without needing to mention the extraordinary weather events of 1893, 1927 or 1934. Sadly for some, with no appreciation of history, the sky is always falling in.

    Marc Hendrickx Berowra Heights

  2. Geoff Brown says

    Stewart Franks has been busy. I heard him around 5am on 2GB and also this afternoon on 2UE with Mike Smith.
    Can listen all day to Stewart’s fascinating accent making so much sense.

  3. James Mayeau says

    It’s good to have you back, Jen.

    I was planning on sending you a signed bumper sticker, from the Proposition 23 election to roll back California’s global warming law, but WE lost ( Royal “WE” meaning the people of California).

    Strangely it happened exactly the opposite of what I predicted. California kept AGW, but the Republican sweep in the rest of the US makes it impossible for AGW to push forward at the National level.

    So lately main stream reporters have been parroting Al Gore’s claim that there has been a slow buildup of ‘extra’ water vapor due to AGW. They give us stuff like this,
    “there’s about four percent more water vapor in the air now, then there was in the ’70s because of warmer oceans and warmer air, and this returns to the earth as heavy rains and heavy snows.”

    I remember you had a post about the actual measurement of water vapor in the atmosphere, and as I recall the study showed water vapor dropping over time.

  4. Polyaulax says

    Lake Eucumbene is now at 30.1% and its storage trend is going up,in the opposite direction to its trajectory this time last year.

    John Sayers,Carlton didn’t claim the last year of severe weather events was ‘unprecedented’,just that it was ‘extraordinary’. As a matter of fact some of those events WERE unprecedented in the modern record,like the twenty national all time extreme temperatures records set in the NH summer,and the magnitude of the Russian heatwave. Or the latest recorded freeze-up of Hudson Bay. New Zealand just received its first Category 1 cyclone,Wilma,as opposed to previous visits of extra-tropical storms.

    As for Yasi being extraordinary,well,as the biggest [widest zone of landfalling storm winds] most intense landfalling cyclone [930hPa on landfall] since 1918, it’s extraordinary enough in the modern record. The rump of the dam thing still has a well-defined circulation and has crossed in to WA near Giles after dropping a record daily fall at Ernaballa. Why quibble?

  5. spangled drongo says

    I’m sure Stewart Franks will remind us of the strong correlation of the current La Nina and neg IPO with our flooding and cyclones and relieve us from DavidK’s bedwetting about these dramas being “consistent with” AGW.

  6. spangled drongo says

    “New Zealand just received its first Category 1 cyclone,Wilma,as opposed to previous visits of extra-tropical storms.”

    Poly,

    Are you saying that NZ doesn’t get cyclones?

  8. Polyaulax says

    Not at all,SD,in the general sense. Plenty of named ex-cyclones have made it,still powerful enough for gales and heavy rains,but no longer classed structurally as tropical cyclones. But this is the first Cat 1/2 with the structure to make it, according to Phil Duncan of Weatherwatch.co.nz.

  9. Luke says

    Some bulldust in Stewart Franks’ Counterpoint interview – “No focus on climate variability” he says – well apart from 15 years of http://www.managingclimate.gov.au/ – what a load of cobblers by Stewart. And “everyone” was surprised by the floods – well apart from every second person one talks to – including an excited Brisbane Lord Mayor and Regional Bureau.

    Talk about spin.

  10. el gordo says

    Mike Carlton said Bob Brown ‘was verballed’, but I think not.

    “Burning coal is a major cause of global warming,” Bob Brown said.

    “This industry, which is 75 per cent owned outside Australia, should help pay the cost of the predicted more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades.”

    Cynical and politically stupid, but he will still get re-elected.

  11. Polyaulax says

    Prof.Franks has also got his relationship between increased anchovy catches and warmer water temperature the wrong way about re El Nino. Warmer waters means poorer anchovy harvests,not bounteous catches.

    He claims that scientists associating AGW induced changes with enhancing La Nina events are speculating in the ignorance of the history of climate variability. This is tosh. David Karoly’s comments were prefaced with an acknowledgement of that natural variability as he cited the “droughts and flooding rains” meme. Neville Nicholls column in the AMOS journal,reproduced by the ABC/s Drum,is also far more nuanced.

  12. John Sayers says

    oh come on – the historical data shows that Yari was just another cyclone. – we are not talking about anchovy catches and this is normal Australian climate.

  13. spangled drongo says

    A few cyclone tracks in the South Pacific, and I’ve been in the eye of a Tasman Sea cyclone that was in the NZ latitude. Also many cyclones in these parts would never have been recorded before 1970 so it is a dodgy claim.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:South_Pacific_cyclone_tracks_1980-2005.jpg

    I seem to recall a cyclone near Wellington that sank a ferry and drowned a lot of people with winds of 270 kph. [greater than Yasi]

    And DK acknowledges weather extremes? How observant of him.

    Is he saying that because those extremes are “consistent with” AGW that we have always had AGW in this country?

    Dorothea, how could you have missed the bleedin’ obvious!

  14. Luke says

    The AGW x cyclone interaction story is complicated.

    Cyclones more likely to make landfall in La Nina years?

    So latest paper by Callaghan and Power (2010) cyclones making landfall over eastern Australia strongly tied to decadal variability in the SPCZ, ENSO and the IPO.

    Also “some” part of the decline in landfalls may be a weakening in the Walker circulation with has anthropogenic drivers.

    Callaghan and Power also warn that a change in the IPO (as has recently occurred) may see a large change in cyclones making landfall. i.e. a sudden increase again http://www.cawcr.gov.au/meetings/fd/SPCZ_workshop_Apia_presentations/Power_SPCZ_wshop_Apia_2010.pdf

    So a very complex story AGW making tropical cyclones in the longer run fewer but more intense, and less likely to make landfall (reducing Walker circulation (although no trends in SOI itself)) but decadal variability (IPO x ENSO) maybe causing 30 year trends up or down??

    Sea surface temperatures in tropical Australia have been trending up over 30 years and this year’s La Nina had “some” record elements.

    Then there’s wind shear ….? gurgle ….

    It’s not in Frank’s interests to point out the complexities and possibilities.

  15. spangled drongo says

    I love a sunburnt country,
    A land of sweeping plains,
    Of ragged mountain ranges,
    Of droughts and flooding rains.
    I love her far horizons,
    I love her jewel-sea,
    But her crazy climate patterns
    All from AGW be.

  16. spangled drongo says

    “It’s not in Frank’s interests to point out the complexities and possibilities.”

    A couple of Franks’ observations:

    Australia has the the widest climate variability of any continent yet all the dialogue is on ACO2.

    Warmist scientists are betting on every horse in the race.

  18. Luke says

    I love a sunburnt country,
    A land of sweeping plains,
    Of eroded mountain ranges,
    Of longer droughts and intenser rains.
    I love her far horizons,
    I love her warming jewel-sea,
    But could the records be broken
    Because of you and me.

    Core of my heart, my country!
    Her pitiless blue sky,
    When sick at heart, around us,
    We see the sceptics lie-
    But then the grey clouds gather,
    We can guess again
    Who fakes the contorted logic
    We know who to blame.

  19. John Sayers says

    Luke – this is just the beautiful Aussie climate we’ve all come to love and respect – please show me evidence that it’s not.

  20. spangled drongo says

    The Luke loves to have a foot in each camp.

    Hard to know sometimes if he is just an argumentative sceptic or a hemorrhaging believer.

    Are you becoming less deluded Luke?

    Do you still beat your wife?

    Your poetry scans lousy.

    There was a young bloke from Milan,
    Who wrote limericks that never would scan.
    The trouble you see
    [He confided in me]
    Is that I try to get as many flamin words in the last line as I possibly can.

  21. John Sayers says

    “he is just an argumentative sceptic or a hemorrhaging believer.”

    both, embarrassedly so…… but he has style and that beats anything IMO

  22. Polyaulax says

    Yes,John Sayers,this is normal Aussie climate variability,and Stewart Franks didn’t discover that fact. It is not ‘opportunistic’ or ‘speculating in ignorance of natural variability’ as he claims, to let the public know what anthropogenic factors are at play in the mix. Commentators are not ‘assuming climate is static’ In fact it seems a bit censorious for a hydrologist to be scolding meteorologists in their own field. What happened to the ‘debate’? Franks is attempting the “we don’t know enough,so we don’t know anything” implication.

    SD,Philip Duncan who is apparently a qualified meteorologist,is suggesting that 1968’s cyclone Giselle was in fact ‘extra-tropical’,while Wilma was still ‘tropical’ in a structural sense,with a warm core. Interesting distinction,I hear you say….but it has something to do with core temperature and modification by interaction/merging with southern weather systems… extra or not ,it was certainly around as powerful as Wilma,but it wasn’t until it interacted with a strong southern low that the 275km/h gusts were felt in Wellington.

    Past extra-tropicals include Bola [1988], Fergus [1996] and Drena [1997],all pretty nasty,but apparently losing the definitive features of tropicality.

    There was an old bird from Nerang
    Who measured the tides.. in one spot
    ‘It won’t meet the predictions
    or scary depictions.
    Therefore AGW ain’t worth squat!’

  23. spangled drongo says

    Very droll, Poly. And scans better than Luke’s.

    I wonder how well those “structures” have been monitored in the past.

    I suppose our current “record” SSTs have something to do with it.

    Or is it LOSU?

    Hydra, the multi-headed uncertainty monster!

  28. el gordo says

    Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi has a realistic slant on climate change.

    “What’s interesting about what we’re seeing here is that [the current La Nina] is starting so cold,” said Bastardi, “and it’s coinciding with bigger things that are pushing the overall weather patterns and climate in the Northern Hemisphere and, in fact, globally over the next 20 to 30 years that we have not really dealt with, nor can we really quantify.”