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BaerbelW at 16:25 PM on 20 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Mark Thomas @22
Many of your questions are answered in our MOOC „Denial101x - Making sense of climate science denial“ which also explains the basics of climate change science (but also, how and why it gets distorted).
It‘s available throughout the year until December 16 as a self-paced version on the edX platform: http://sks.to/denial101x
You can also just watch the videos via this list: http://sks.to/denial101xvideos where you‘ll also find links to the underlying scientific studies grouped by lecture/topic.
Hope this helps!
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Mark Thomas at 14:03 PM on 20 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Bob Loblaw @21
I am honestly describing a personal journey unfolding. I can see how it could be interpreted as insincere, or subversive but its not. This is why I use my real name. I have a bachelor of applied science, chemistry major, with a focus on enviro management of hazardous materials. I worked as a scientist for more than a decade assessing and cleaning up contaminated sites (soil and groundwater) in Australia, I have written hundreds of contaminated site reports for property development, ecological and human health risk based studies, including reviewing of contamination models. So clearly I am not a 'climate scientist'. I am here presenting myself as a citizen scientist wanting to understand more about broadscale anthropogenic impacts on the world.
I thought coming here was a place to learn a balanced view. The succession of documents I have presented, I have been finding while writing these comments . I made it clear in my first post (which is my first on a science blog site) I am sceptical about GHG as the main contributor to the understanding of climate change, and that the information I have presented regarding broadscale land clearing seems to explain the current situation to me in hand with GHG impacts. I seek knowledge on this subject. If the climate science community your refering to is aware, please share.
Your refenced document for me to read from 1979 is paywalled with a subscription, may science be free for everyone, The late great Carl Sagan I am sure would not be pleased his work is paywalled. I have endevoured to provide open source material so everyone who chooses can read.
So I ask, please engage, lets discuss, whats your opinion on this subject matter I have presented?
PS No paywalled articles.
Sincerely, Mark
Moderator Response:[DB] Research papers are often available on the web for free, as authors like to share their work. For example, the piece by Sagan is available here.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:50 AM on 20 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Mark: you say "...the more I see it needs to be a bigger part..."
Note that the paper you found has a list of references. Note that the earliest of those references is from 1987.
I can also point you to a paper from 1979:
Anthropogenic Albedo Changes and the Earth's Climate
Carl Sagan, Owen B. Toon, James B. Pollack
Science 21 Dec 1979:
Vol. 206, Issue 4425, pp. 1363-1368
DOI: 10.1126/science.206.4425.1363Studying changing surface effects on climate is not new. This is not something the climate science community is unaware of.
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Mark Thomas at 09:26 AM on 20 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Nigelj@19, I was thinking along very similar lines. Comparing temperatrure trend over time against deforrestation rates and global warming trend, humidity and rainfall.
Forest Hydrogeology and impacts of deforestation evidence points to big contributions to climatic change, at much more than a localised climate. Articles I have refered so far in this thread have many references within (I can if people want a list). I mean now that I think about this it comes across as common sense. When you visualise Australia, and compare pre-european invasion land cover to the current land cover ... I can see it would drive up temperature, increase arid conditions and reduce moisture. I will further support this idea with references below.
The comparison of an area deforested to forested and moisture and temperature impacts is presented in my first comment (Mark Thomas @3) which shows a regional area in Western Australia before and after measurements. Shows dramatic impact.
Regarding Australia wide...
Available for free online (woohoo!! how all science should be) at AGU100 this paper presents modelling comparions on climate in Australia pre-european and modern day conditions.
'Modeling the impact of historical land cover change on Australia's regional climate' 2007 by C. A. McAlpine J. Syktus R. C. Deo P. J. Lawrence H. A. McGowan I. G. Watterson S. R. Phinn
The report discusses in detail the modelled variability in temperature and moisture. (I am going to try to link in some figures ... this is my first time writing on a science discussion site, )
The report investigation aim (Introduction) "...The question then is ‐ is Australia's regional climate sensitive to land cover change?....."
..."However, the effect of LCC [Land Cover Change] on the Australian climate has been a secondary consideration for climate change projections, despite the clearing of over 1.2 million km2 or ∼13% of the continent since European settlement.
The regions of greatest LCC are southeast Australia (New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, cleared 1800‐mid 1900s), southwest Western Australia (1920–1980s), and more recently inland Queensland [Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG), 1990; Barson et al., 2000]. Nair et al. [2007], using satellite observational data, showed that replacement of half the native vegetation by croplands in southwest Western Australia resulted in a decrease of 7 Wm−2 in radiative forcing. They argue that general circulation models tend to underestimate the radiative forcing of LCC by a factor of two."
in section 3.2 discusses pre european and current forest modelling temperature trends 2002/2003 drought.
"[18] The simulated warmer and drier conditions in eastern Australia are cumulatively impacting on surface and sub‐soil moisture, and likely to be affecting vertical moisture transport processes, changing the partitioning of available water between runoff and evaporation. This has important, largely unrecognized consequences for agricultural production and already stressed land and water resources. Further, the simulated increase in temperatures in the sensitivity experiments, especially in southern Queensland and New South Wales, for the 2002/2003 drought, is consistent with the observed trend of recent droughts being warmer than previous droughts (1982, 1994) with a similar low rainfall [Nicholls, 2006]."
The report concludes
..."[19] The findings of our sensitivity experiment indicate that replacing the native woody vegetation with crops and grazing in southwest Western Australia and eastern Australia has resulted in significant changes in regional climate, with a shift to warmer and drier conditions, especially in southeast Australia, the nation's major agricultural region. The simulated changes in Australia's regional climate suggest that LCC [Land Cover Change] is likely a contributing factor to the observed trends in surface temperature and rainfall at the regional scale. While formal attribution studies are required, the outcomes raise important questions about the impact of LCC on Australia's regional climate, and highlight a strong feedback effect between LCC and the severity of recent droughts impacting on Australia's already stressed natural resources and agriculture."
Now at a global research level for Land Cover Change .....
Research paper in Science Direct, presented in the Global Environmental Change Journal, Volume 43, March 2017, Pages 51-61
Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world
".....As illustrated in Fig. 2, solar energy that might otherwise drive transpiration and evaporation remains in the local landscape as heat, raising local temperatures. This can result in dramatic changes across different land-use environments. Heatwave conditions can amplify these effects. Warmer temperatures appear to result in greater temperature differentials between forested and open-field environments, though broad-leaved species may have stronger impacts on cooling than conifers (Renaud and Rebetez, 2009, Zaitchik et al., 2006). Maintaining tree cover can reduce high temperatures and buffer some of the extremes otherwise likely to arise with climate change."
Fig. 2. Surface temperature distribution in a mixed landscape with forest.
For me, I am seeing that ecology needs to play an equal part of the conversation regarding climate change mitigation as much as CO2. The more I read about land cover changes and their impacts the more I see it needs to be a bigger part. They are not seperable. I note the following conclusion from the above reference 'Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world'.
... in section 9 "Though the 2015 UNFCCC Paris Agreement has again turned attention to the carbon-related role of forests, the agreement likewise emphasizes that mitigation and adaptation agendas are to be handled in synergy. Much can still be done to improve implementation.
The effects of forests on water and climate at local, regional and continental scales provide a powerful adaptation tool that, if wielded successfully, also has globally-relevant climate change mitigation potential....."
Thankyou Nigelj for encouragement to do comparison trends of climate and land based conditions and potential impacts, I see how important this is to turning the tide of climate change and anthropogenic damage, I have a new project it seems :)
Moderator Response:[DB] Embedded images; shortened and activated URLs.
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nigelj at 06:07 AM on 20 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Mark Thomas @18, why not compare the long term trend in eastern Australias summer temperatures, where theres been a lot of long term deforestation, with a long term summer temperature trend from somewhere without significant deforestation? And without other complicating factors. There will probably be data somewhere on the net maybe the mid west of America which I think has always been grasslands.
If theres any difference in the temperature trend, it would tell you roughly how much deforestation is contributing to local temperature changes. I suspect it isn't contributing much
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:04 AM on 20 February 2020Sea level is not rising
When Duncan61 say they have measured no change, perhaps it is because they do not measure it at all. The Port Authority site has no mention that I could find of sea level monitoring.
NOAA, however, shows a trend upward of 1.71+- 0.23 mm/year. I note that this record does not go back 163 years. White et al (2014) is a really good paper, freely avilable but it was published 6 years ago and there has likely been further increase since.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825214000956
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=680-471
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Mark Thomas at 16:32 PM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Hello Eclectic @12
I hear you on the many variables and significant studies to ascertain GHG emissions from the land and land use, tonnes of good scientific studies and seems a clear understanding of related impacts. In reference to the aspects you raised, they are predominately current use and on-going use studies. I am interested specifically in direct current impact on climate from 200 years of deforestation, in particular in the last 50 years has been the most ... Our temp increases in Aust (scaddenp @15) have also kicked up at the same time... possible correlation... possible contributing factor with GHG. As you pointed out, micro climate impacts can be confidently considered. So it is it seems I am talking about something a little wider and possibly far fetched.
The CSIRO paper I referenced, summised from using IPCC model, put forward a range increase in temperature equal and possibly higher than current modelled AGW impact.
It is because Australia has removed so much forest cover, 40% (Mark Thomas @3). From the article I provided (Mark Thomas @10), is a discussion on continental impact, suggesting far more than micro or localised climate change. It quotes studies by Russian scientists that have looked at Australia's situation because, globally (I assume), we are unusual due to the massive land clearing of forests.
So I am at this time, seeing deforestation as an equal major issue to address climate change across Australia as much as CO2 (eek am I saying something wrong here?). This is a focus on Australia and not the world. Basically even if the world sorts CO2, which is happening, from what I see, we would still be in significant fire danger, accelerating ecological damage because of the massive historic land clearing.
I am going to contact CSIRO and enquire on their position on this subject presented in their ECOS publication I referenced (Mark Thomas @10).
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Eclectic at 15:52 PM on 19 February 2020Sea level is not rising
Duncan61 comments today on another thread [wildfires] :-
< "O.K. where is the sea level rising.I took it upon myself to contact Freemantle port Authority and they have measured no change in 163 years.If a lot of the ice has melted why is the sea not going up???.Is it O.K. for me to ask or is it a secret " >
Duncan, the scientific data shows a 200 mm rise in sea level at Freemantle in modern times ~ which is kind of average for worldwide sea leve rise (currently rising about 3mm per year and accelerating). The moderator indicates that you sometimes have to adjust for vertical land movement also : but that's less than 0.2 mm per year for coastal Western Australia, so quite insignificant.
Why would you think (or believe) that 100+ years of global ice melting and global ocean warming . . . would not produce an ongoing sea level rise? Even the science-denying propaganda shill who calls herself JoNova and who loves to deceive & mislead her readers . . . even she admits that the Freemantle level has risen 200mm in just over 100 years.
So it's a puzzle, Duncan, how you came to take up the ridiculous nonsense you got from the Freemantle Authority. Sounds like maybe your informant was a jokester enjoying pulling your leg . . . or he's a rabid Flat-Earther . . . or his brother is a Real Estate agent trying to clinch a big waterfront land deal. Could be all sorts of reasons for someone coming up with such rubbish, don't you think?
Freemantle sea level does fluctuate 150 mm over a decade or so, as the oceanic current is affected by the larger-scale effects of El Nino & Indian Dipole oscillations ~ but that averages out to about zero alteration to the underlying mean sea level rise coming from AGW. But I doubt it was that half-truth cherrypick which was what your misinformant was trying to trick you with.
Best just to stick with the reliable mainstream science, rather than listen to a source similar to "a guy you met at the tavern".
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duncan61 at 13:29 PM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
O.K. where is the sea rising.I took it upon myself to contact Fremantle port Authority and they have measured no change in 163 years.If a lot of the ice has melted why is the sea not going up???.Is it O.K.for me to ask or is it a secret
Moderator Response:[PS] Discussion about sealevel rise goes here. It is offtopic here. Cherry picking single points is not how science is done. More on fremantle here. More on ice sheet loss here. For glacier mass balance see here.
Thank you for taking the time to share with us. Skeptical Science is a user forum wherein the science of climate change can be discussed from the standpoint of the science itself. Ideology and politics get checked at the keyboard.
Please take the time to review the Comments Policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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Philippe Chantreau at 12:42 PM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
I share your concern Eclectic, had not seen that, although one return I found had an advertisement banner at the bottom that said "Interested in being a reviewer?"
Outsourcing the review process certainly does not seem to be a good idea.
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scaddenp at 12:12 PM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
duncan61 - well that is kind of trivial to find (maybe even the "escalator" graphic on the right this page. Maybe more relevant is Australian summer temperatures.
Or for all season, all of Australia.
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Eclectic at 11:56 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Philippe @6 , thanks for that info about that particular journal. As I look into things, I become more aware of the problems of self-citations, and the possibilties of other manipulations of "quality" parameters. In general, I had always inclined to assess the respectabilty/reputation of a journal by the respect given by the experts in that field.
One thing which did raise my eyebrows, is that the publisher of that journal [Internat. Journal of Sustainability etc] had a portfolio of 350 journals ~ and stated that they outsourced the review process. This is a new world for me, for I had previously assumed that reputable journals were (at least in part) reputable precisely because they had very knowledgeable editors who knew the background of the journal's field and knew the appropriate experts who would best be placed to review a submitted paper.
If I can outsource my core responsibilities so easily, then I see a new career beckoning to me : Editor of a scientific journal !
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duncan61 at 11:54 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
O.k.can anyone tell me how much warmer the Earth is now.
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Eclectic at 11:32 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Mark Thomas , in my own simple understanding of things ~ deforestation has a global warming effect because woody carbon is released to raise the atmospheric CO2 level (and the replacement grasslands or cultivated fields are much lower in carbon mass . . . also, cultivated soil tends to lose some of its stored carbon, too).
OTOH, grasslands & farmland have a higher albedo, and thus some cooling effect ~ but not enough to counterbalance the CO2 effect. Then there are other complexities, such as the methane produced in rice-fields.
It would be difficult to determine whether small-region climate changes (e.g. in the Australian continent) could be brought about by deforestation. "Micro-climate" might well be cooled by evaporation from tall forests ~ but I am a touch sceptical about the evaporative difference between grassland/agri-fields and virgin land of the scrubby or semi-arid type (of which Australia has always possessed a vast amount).
Soil moisture may not be very important ~ since on dry lands the greater temperature during the day is counterbalanced by the lower temperature at night.
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scaddenp at 10:25 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Thanks for that clarification Mark.
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Mark Thomas at 10:12 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Hello, I have searched the web site, ..... scaddenp pointed me to a information page "its not bad' unfortunately that has nothing on physical component of deforestation impact on climate.
So staying on topic regarding forest fires and why, I found this, CSIRO report from their ECOS Magazine from 2009. titled "Linking land clearing to drought and climate change' by Travis Taylor
http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?paper=EC150p16
Extract...
"Dr McAlpine’s team have used the CSIRO MARK 3 climate model – the same one used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – to simulate the climate impacts of land clearing over the past 200 years.
‘We were only looking at the effect of vegetation clearing and nothing else,’ Dr McAlpine explained. ‘Any increases in temperature had to come down to a loss of vegetation.’
The modelling results showed a strong correlation between climate and loss of vegetation from pre-European settlement levels, with an average summer temperature increase in eastern Australia of 0.4–2.0°C, and a 4–12 per cent decrease in summer rainfall......"
Please I am not being a 'denier' re seriousness of AGW, I am looking into a not so much talked about aspect impacting Australia's climate that appears very significant. Everyone knows it is a combination of aspects, its the degree of impact from each aspect I seek to know more about as kindly pointed out to me by moderator in my first comment. Because, if it is true what the CSIRO publish above, then, OMG.
I would genuinely appreciate some further reading prompts or knowledge sharing on this in regards to Australia.
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Mark Thomas at 09:27 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
scaddenp @8,
Thankyou for clarification regarding scientific terminology and the use of adjectives. In environmental investigation reports key descriptive words, rule one: no absolutes so not to get sued :) most prevalent terms, maybe, likely, highly likely, indicates, suggests, possible, potential impact, minimal risk, potential risk.
To explain myself a little further, I am not here to contest or question anything presented on skeptical science, particularly IPCC reports! I seek knowledge to gain understanding to enjoy fruitful dialogue. I will check the thread area recommended, thank you for the tip.
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RedBaron at 08:04 AM on 19 February 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7
The comment was regarding the Editor's Pick for this week. What thread is that one on?
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RedBaron at 06:44 AM on 19 February 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7
i posted a comment but it did not appear
Moderator Response:[DB] It appeared. It was removed because there are dedicated posts on which you've participated in the past that would be more appropriate than the Weekly Roundup thread. You are welcome to repost it on one of those dedicated posts.
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scaddenp at 05:56 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Jim, agreed. "Catastrophic" is meaningless in this context. To some it means, say, loss of heavily populated fertile deltas to salt contamination; to others it means paying more taxes. The phrase has no value to science and isnt used.
If Mark Thomas is contesting the science-based conclusions in the AR5 WG2 ("impacts") report, then perhaps he might like to find an appropriate thread (not here) in which to share his concerns and data supporting them. The Arguments, Taxonomy, "Its not bad" can a good starting point for find appropriate threads.
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Mark Thomas at 05:54 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
thankyou moderator for the further information
I checked out the link document and understand your reference explains about 11% of the current GHG is from 'forestry and other land use globally'. I thought that the increase in heat and loss of moisture on the landscape from removing the forests is ontop of the impact from GHG from forestry.
When I used term Anthropogenic Global Destruction (AGD), it is, for my own understanding, as a way to bring together the physical changes to the planet with the emissions, and their combined impact to climate. I personally have realised that for me climate change is about AGD and AGW as one. This combination is bringing balance to my sceptisim improving my understanding of overall situation.
@Eclectic Correct I dont know if the paper is peer reviewed, nor the quality, it was produced from University of Western Australia. As the paper is pay to read, ... I dont pay for science, it should be freely available. In the abstract, I was startled by the huge physical impact on the localised and regional climate from the deforestation. It got me thinking how almost every civilisation in history has destroyed itself from over agriculture, deforestation etc. When I see how much we have destroyed in Australia, and our absolute incompetence in water resource management that it is relentless, I have become genuinely worried and I get the point Extention Rebellion is making.
So regarding quality, I am not sure and maybe I was sucked in by an abstract with such extreme numbers of impact. I will be doing more research on this particulalry regarding Australia. Any future post I will be clearer. Cheers
@Jim thankyou for the advice, and pointing out the origins, the current dialogue in media is stating we have 10 or 15 years left before tipping point and runaway dramatic changes. Taking that seriously, is frightening. So not sure what words to use to describe. I get your point re deniers. The use of extreme adjectives has gone a little to far in society.
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trstyles at 05:11 AM on 19 February 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7
It is my understanding that the northern limit of agriculture in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba is defined by the lack of land suitable for agriculture further north, not by climate. I suspect that a similar situation exists in Eurasia and Siberia.
As for carbon in soils, few to consider that the rich soils of the northern hemisphere's corn and wheat producing regions developed largely in thick parent materials beneath grasslands subject to cold winters. Once those soils warm up, especially when they cease to freeze in winter, both carbon content and fertility will markedly decline. The far north will never come close to the agricultural productivity of the farmlands that currently support humanity.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:47 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Eclectic @ 4,
The journal's latest impact factor is 2.811. To give an idea to readers, high impact journals are in the 30's/40's. The journal has existed for about 12 years and its impact has been increasing. There is debate, however, as to the usefulness of this metric. Not that it determines the quaity of a single paper. The review process is of more interest. I found some reviewers listed on another source, one had a PhD in disaster management.
At first glance, it does not appear to be the predatory type.
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=tsdw20
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Jim Eager at 03:06 AM on 19 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Mark Thomas, using the phrase "catastrophic AGW" is an instant red flag as just about the only people who use it are AGW deniers.
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JohnSeers at 18:34 PM on 18 February 2020Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
"... there is only one explanation: One side must be lying like a trooper."
That is a real logic failure there. I can think of at least two more explanations that would fit those criteria. -
Eclectic at 14:36 PM on 18 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Mark Thomas @3 ,
your second link (which is to the "International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology" ) is a journal with a beautiful name ~ but it is not on the Master Journal List.
What is its quality? What is the quality of its peer review?
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Mark Thomas at 09:06 AM on 18 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Greetings all, just joined and first comment. I am a scientist (environmental chemistry), I am not a climate scientist, and I am openly a non-agressive sceptic of catastrophic AGW. I do however recognise the collective overwhelming impact of Anthropogenic Global Destruction AGD including the changes to global air quality. So that being said, I would like to share some information that I have seen little discussion on that greatly effects our worlds climate.
A major and little talked about fact in relation to Aust. temperature changes, Australia has removed near 40% of all forests.
There is clear research showing the massive impact deforestation has on regional temperature and rainfall.
I came across the following paper when researching deforestation impacts on climate. ” The effect of land clearing on rainfall and fresh water resources in Western Australia: a multi-functional sustainability analysis” published in the “International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology” 2013.
From the abstract: “…..We compare coastal and inland rainfall to show empirically that 55% to 62% of the observed rainfall decline is the result of land clearing alone. [an area south coast of Western Australia] Using the index of sustainable functionality, we show that the economic consequences associated with this change of land use on fresh water resource availability have been underestimated to date and disproportionately affect the environment and poorest members of the population.”Article in ABC news interviewed the author of the above paper and discusses in depth “When trees make rain: Could restoring forests help ease drought in Australia?” September 2018, states “….Around 50 per cent of native forests in the state’s south-west [western australia] were cleared between the 1960s and 1980s, which coincided with a decrease of around 16 per cent in inland rainfall compared to coastal rain, according to University of Western Australia researcher Mark Andrich.”
LINKSo when you take into the consideration the understood impact of broadscale continental deforestation seems to dwarf the impact of CO2 alone, and explains clearly why we have the dire situation combined with AGW.
To sum up, remove 40% of the vegetation from your garden, stop 30% of rainfall penetrating, remove say 30-50% of the insects and animal species diversity..... and see how it handles a couple of hot days/seasons.
So when we talk about Australia fires, I think broadscale deforestartion is a major influence.
So regarding deforestation and possible overwhelming climatic impacts in Australia am i barking up the wrong tree.... ??
Moderator Response:[DB] "the understood impact of broadscale continental deforestation seems to dwarf the impact of CO2 alone"
You'll need to support this claim. Per the AR5 (AR5, SPM page 5, Figure SPM.2), deforestation is about 11% of the overall problem.
Shortened and activated hyperlinks; embedded linked graphic for clarity.
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scaddenp at 06:32 AM on 18 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
duncan61 - is there any evidence that these "groups" are actually affecting burnoff policy? Quoting NSW spokesperson
"A spokesperson for the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment has told Guardian Australia that the National Parks and Wildlife Service carried out hazard reduction activities across more than 139,000ha in 2018 and 2019.
The NPWS had a hazard reduction target to treat 680,000ha of parks and reserves in the five years from 2011, which the spokesperson said it had exceeded.
The spokesperson added: “Hazard reduction is just one way of preparing for bushfires – it doesn’t remove the threat of fire.”
Factcheck on Green party backburning policy here.
Extreme fire-risk however hampers efforts thanks to safely concerns.
Are you seriously suggesting that higher temperatures dont make drought and fire-risk worse?
There are other articles here on fire in Australia. See the blue left sidebar.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:44 AM on 18 February 2020Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
It is worth noting that the Telegraph is a Murdoch paper and, like all other tentacles of the Murdoch's empire, used to foster its boss' ideology. In any circumstance, I would give it only the credence it deserves.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:39 AM on 18 February 2020Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
Booker is not a reliable source. The mining/fossil fuel stooge S. McIntyre years ago launched a harassment campaign by asking multiple followers to file FOI requests, directed against scientists whose work he disliked. Because they knew that the requests were not a good faith effort, the recipients were reluctant to release information, which unfortunately escalated to whole thing in a away that then became easy to exploit for the bad faith actors. It can certainly be said that Jones and others could have handled this better, and that was one of the conclusions of the investigation. Whomever can be perfect all the time when faced with bad faith attacks can throw the first stone.
https://skepticalscience.com/Climategate-freedom-of-information.html
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ScienceFre4k at 05:08 AM on 18 February 2020Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
Hi,
in your article above you portray Climategate as follows: "Focusing on a few suggestive emails, taken out of context ..."
After some minutes of googling I came across this article from the renowned british newspaper "The Telegraph" (in case someone doesn't know: the weekly version of "The Daily Telegraph"): LINK
Citation: "There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws."
The article also says that this scandal goes right to the heart of the IPCC: "Professor Philip Jones, the CRU's director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports."
The problem is that these pictures given differ so geatly that there is only one explanation: One side must be lying like a trooper.
If the author of the article, columnist Christopher Booker, and the colleagues he is referring to, are all lying, he and them must have made up their accusations, that means the emails and the years of deceit do not exist, it is all invented. Or he misread the emails, he and his colleagues are just stupid. Or, on the other hand, climate alarmists are defending their cause by playing down a terrible scandal. Everyone shall decide for their own, which is more probable.
The start page I read here was quite good and you made some interesting points I eventually will investigate on further. But here, talking about Climategate I once more come to the conclusion that Skeptics sometimes aren't quite that skeptic at all but love to trust in what authorities proclaim, without checking the facts.
Moderator Response:[DB] Shortened and activated URL.
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Tom Dayton at 00:31 AM on 18 February 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
World Resources Institute "just produced an updated diagram explaining where the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from and how they are used. This time we have both interactive and static versions."
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Jim Hunt at 23:34 PM on 17 February 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #7
Perhaps I might take this opportunity to point out a fact that the MSM seem to have missed?
The recent calving of the Pine Island Ice Shelf was first revealed on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,429.msg248702.html#msg248702
If I can embed an animated GIF:
This has been a public service announcement!Moderator Response:[DB] Resized image that was breaking page formatting.
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duncan61 at 19:06 PM on 17 February 2020Australia's wildfires: Is this the 'new normal'?
Fuel load reduction has been the way that bush fires have been managed better in the past however some groups protested the low impact burnoffs and it did not happen as planned in the very area that first started up.I live in Western Australia and have taken part in burn offs when I lived in a small country town in the South and was a part of the local bushfire Brigade.It greatly reduces the intensity of the fire and can means that sometimes the fire can be bought under control.If the leaf litter and small twigs are still present it goes off like someone is pouring petrol on it.I can not agree the whole situation is because of some AGW
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Eclectic at 18:50 PM on 17 February 2020Welcome to Skeptical Science
Moderator, my apology for making post #82. There was no uncivilized intent, nor do I have any interest in whatever names or pseudonyms which JoeZ chooses to use here or elsewhere on the web. It is all about his "ideas".
I was wishing to make a couple of points, which I thought would be of interest to readers :-
(A) The very recent scientific paper Chi Chen et al., 2020 (in Nature Sustainability ) , which was a satellite-based worldwide study, giving a mixed picture of world greening and world browning during the the two decades of this current century. The picture is complex, and I won't go into detail in this thread ~ but it does support the idea that the definite (sum-total) world greening effect in the latter part of the 20th Century . . . has eased/slowed to a lower level of growth (discounting human tree-planting activities, etcetera) and is partly counterbalanced by a browning effect in some regions.
(B) When I said that JoeZ was "exposed" ~ it meant simply that his unscientific attitude was exposed by his own comments in the broader context. Unscientific, in that he summarily dismissed the worldwide satellite study by Chi Chen et al., . . . because it clashed with JoeZ's personal anecdotal experience in his own neck of the woods [literally!] , where he has (casually) observed "no browning" of note. Clearly, such an attitude is a proverbial 1000 miles away from true skepticism.
But I wish JoeZ well, and I hope he will choose to take some steps, on that 1000 mile journey.
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scaddenp at 06:29 AM on 17 February 20203 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
CzarnyZajaczek, as I pointed out in 51, (and further see also 46) the source of the claim for Financial Times and ABC was LeadingEdge and they blatantly misrepresented the source they quote (easy to check). It is further contradicted by more reliable sources. I would not trust any media source and especially not a media source whose readership is dominated by one or other end of the political spectrum. As was also pointed out, SA wholesale generation prices were not expensive but retail was, so a rather more complex picture than blaming it on renewables.
Furthermore, if you look at the same source behind the 2017 stories, you will see rather an improvement in Austalian pricing. The Australia Institute is reporting South Australia produces best wholesale electricty prices now.
Your Jamesnixon link is 404 for me. It is unclear what point you are trying to make.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:24 AM on 17 February 2020Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
It looks like Max Polo's tenure here has ended, but for the benefit of anyone reading this far and not wanting to read the thread over at AndThenTheresPhysics, here is the lowdown on what Max gets wrong in his post above.
Max does fine until he gets to the point where he breaks natural uptake into two components, Un = Unn + Una.
- There is no physical basis to seperate those two fluxes. Max's equation is imply an algebraic distraction.
- One might divide natural uptake into physically-real components such as ocean vs. terrestrial, biotic vs. chemical, etc. Each of these would react differently over time, because there are different process involved.
- Each of those simply responds to the current atmospheric CO2 concentration, though - with no differentiation between CO2 that was emitted from natural sources, and CO2 that was emitted from anthropogenic sources.
- Where Max says "Unn = “natural” carbon that would get absorbed by natural sinks in absence of human emissions", he is wrong. His Unn term is actually carbon that would get absorbed by natural sinks if atmospheric CO2 had not increased. Except CO2 has ncreased. And natural uptake changes as a result. It is now Max's Unn+Una, algebraically, but it is not two different things - it's just natural uptake.
CO2 uptake varies with time. The Mauna Loa (Keeling) curve shows this clearly when the seasonal cycle is included. It does this for physical reasons, not algebraic ones.
The rest of Max's algebraic manipulations are meaningless. There is only one "natural uptake" term that can be used: Max's Un. And Un>En, so nature is a net carbon sink, not a source.
Max's "nature can be a net emitter" only applies when you fail to include a portion of the natural uptake, which is exacly what Max has done (his Una term). It's like saying "my gambling debts are not draining my bank account, because my bank account shows a net increase if I ignore my gambling expenses". There is a pyschololgical term for what that gambler is thinking.
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william5331 at 04:47 AM on 17 February 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7
The expansion of farm lands could and probably will release carbon to the atmosphere if past experience is anything to go by. But there is a possibility that it could actually sequester masses of carbon into the soil. Read Growing A Revolution by David R Montgomery for chapter and verse.
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Jim Eager at 03:40 AM on 17 February 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7
Re: "Canada's North may become our breadbasket of the future"
This week on CBC Radio science news program Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald interviewed coauthor Evan Fraser about their study on climate-driven expansion of agricultural frontiers.
Listen at: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/wheat-and-potatoes-in-nunavut-climate-change-could-bring-agriculture-to-the-north-1.5463850
Fraser admitted that geographical and topographical factors such as soil type, hydrology and the vast expanse of exposed or thinly covered Canadian Shield bedrock were not taken into account in their study, which frankly makes their premise somewhat meaningless. I often used to encounter this common and naive mistake from those seeking to downplay the effects of warming climate by insisting that as the midwestern grain belt climate warmed too much the growing of wheat and corn would just shift north into Canada, but it is shocking to see it coming from trained scientists.
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Eclectic at 23:50 PM on 16 February 2020Welcome to Skeptical Science
You're welcome, JoeZ @84. I am frequently lurking and/or posting on SkS and WUWT . . . so really it was only a minor co-incidence (and not Divine retribution) that you were exposed.
Your second sentence was rather ambiguous ~ it is almost as though you're saying you are presenting mutually-opposed opinions in two different forums [or "fora", if you live in Boston ;-) ]. But (pending any denial from you) I will take it that wasn't what you meant . . . in which case :- why would you object anyone reading the available totality of your opinions?
But - cutting to the Chase - I myself (and almost all readers at SkS ) greatly welcome any climate skepticism that you can present.
So far, however, you have not expressed any valid points of climate skepticism. And before you reply, please consult your English dictionary for the precise meaning of skepticism ~ for skepticism does not mean the contrarianism and/or science-denialism which you find everywhere at WUWT ! . . . with the honorable exception of WUWT comments by the very few there who are intellectually sane e.g. by Stokes, Mosher, and a couple of others not yet banned. [WUWT is a marvellous study in Motivated Reasoning ~ where otherwise-intelligent people repeatedly maintain the craziest concepts . . . and revel in the little echo-chamber where they can angrily vent their outrage & denial of reality.]
So, JoeZ , please present your skepticism about the evidence found in mainstream climate science. But I must warn you that Professors Lindzen, Svensmark & other denialists . . . have thus far entirely failed to find any evidence to invalidate the modern science.
Good luck, JoeZ ~ I sincerely hope you can uncover the "killer" evidence which will send all the world's scientists rushing back to the collective drawing-board. It will be a great relief to everyone, to learn that "AGW" is grossly wrong and there's no "climate emergency" whatsoever.
But until I see your genuine evidence, I shall have to remain . . . skeptical.
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JoeZ at 21:57 PM on 16 February 2020Welcome to Skeptical Science
Eclectic @82
Gee, I'm trying to be nice here and not antagonize people with any climate skepticism I may have- but I see that Eclectic has dug up something from me in another forum. Maybe he should stick to what I say here. We could all spy on everything people say eleswhere then maybe get points for it- but it's not productive.
Moderator Response:[PS] I have censored that comment for breach of comments policy.
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MA Rodger at 21:44 PM on 16 February 2020Earth is heating at a rate equivalent to five atomic bombs per second
rip71749,
Regarding the energy from burning fossil fuels, there is an SkS graphic illustrating the relative size of the various global energy inputs.I feel that 3.7Wm^-2 figure requires some further explaining. It is the value of Climate Forcing, the global energy imbalance, that would result from a doubling of CO2 which, without feedbacks, would result in a global temperature increase of +1ºC. These values are explained by the solar warming (less albedo) being globally 240Wm^-2 which thus gives an effective planetary temperature of (240/5.67e-8)^0.25 = 255K. Add 3.7Wm^-2 and it becomes 256K. These values, of course, apply high up in the atmosphere but the temperature increase from any forcing also applies to the surface temperatures as the lapse rate acts in a linear fashion down through the atmosphere.
Additional to the initial forcing, there are feedbacks which increase the warming. They act as the global temperature rises, this temperature rise meaning the initial climate forcing is being equalised. Thus the feedbacks do not appear as an increased energy imbalance but instead extend the temperature effect of the climate forcing as it equalises with rising temperature.
Now, at any particular time during AGW (where the Climate Forcing is applied slowly over a period and not all at once) the energy imbalance which is warming the globe (and so theoretically available to melt Greenland ice) will be far smaller than the accumulative Climate Forcing since pre-industrial times. Much of this Climate Forcing (and as negative forcings are poorly defined, the value of net Forcing since pre-industrial is imprecisely known but it is usually quoted as very roughly 2Wm^-2) will have been balanced by the global temperature increase since pre-industrial. It is solely the remaining energy imbalance that is available for melting ice caps, this running presently at something like 1Wm^-2.
From the imbalance, there is then perhaps something like 16ZJ/year entering the climate which, if it could be brought to bear on Greenland's ice, would melt Greenland in something like 50 years. Of course, getting all that energy imbalance to Greenland would be impossible but if the ice were to set off across the oceans, it does become possible. Indeed, having melting icebergs bobbing about at lower latitudes would lower the global temperature and this will increase the global energy imbalance. (This is the mechanism behind the hypothesis set out in Hansen et al 2016.)
Hope all that makes sense. -
CzarnyZajaczek at 21:21 PM on 16 February 20203 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
http://www.jamesnixon.com/SolarwindANU.pdf (it's actually on web archive).
p.17 (chapter 8.3 Solar Electricity)
"Wind energy will be clearly favoured in coastal locations or in areas with particularly good wind resources. However, most of the communities are in the north and west of Australia where wind resources are poor."This significantly increases initial cost of building transmission lines and possibly other infrastructure for wind energy in Australia.
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CzarnyZajaczek at 20:11 PM on 16 February 20203 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
@ my comment (60) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid instead of https://www.altenergymag.com/news/2019/09/30/german-study-finds-that-europe-can-be-sustainable-on-solar-and-wind-energy-alone/31875
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CzarnyZajaczek at 19:52 PM on 16 February 20203 clean energy myths that can lead to a productive climate conversation
@scaddenp (comment 56) Financial Review seems reliable to me, and Australia really has one of the highest electricity prices, it already had in 2012 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-21/australians-pay-highest-power-prices-says-study/3904024
USA is large area of land, and there is nearly always wind somewhere to produce significant amount of wind electricity continuosly, the same applies to Europe, so wind alone is able to provide some baseload without any energy storage (https://www.altenergymag.com/news/2019/09/30/german-study-finds-that-europe-can-be-sustainable-on-solar-and-wind-energy-alone/31875/). In Australia renewables like wind and solar are really intermittent and without large storage capacity they cannot turn off any of their fossil generation capacity, and connecting with undersea cables to other regions with significant renevables production possibility would be quite extremely costly in case of Australia, they will have one of highest renewable energy prices on the world until they will build enough storage capacity to fully replace fossil baseload
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Eclectic at 02:19 AM on 16 February 2020Welcome to Skeptical Science
Correction : the paper is Chi Chen et al., 2020
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Eclectic at 01:59 AM on 16 February 2020Welcome to Skeptical Science
Note for readers, who must have sensed JoeZ (Massachusetts forester "of 47 years") expressing a peculiar degree of resistance to establishment of renewables power generation in Massachusetts :-
Joseph Zorzin (a forester of 47 years) has posted a comment in WUWT (Feb 15) giving his personal anecdotal negation of the recent study in Nature Sustainability (the paper Chia et al., 2020 ). The Chia et al., 2020 study is based on satellite assessments showing a mixed picture of world greening and world browning during the two decades of this current century.
I won't go into details of Chia et al., 2020 for that would be more off-topic.
Still, we should be aware of the emotional background, where commenters seem to be favoring "business as usual" instead of zero-emissions policy.
Moderator Response:[PS] Please note that cyber stalking is explicitly forbidden by comment policy. Please desist immediately.
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RedBaron at 00:30 AM on 16 February 2020Climate goes extreme!
Beavers are ecosystem engineers. But there is an even better solution.
We can make those small dams the size of the beaver dams and put small hydroelectric dams on each. Millions of small generators ends up being just as beneficial as a huge hydro dam, but with little to no downside.
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rip71749 at 09:57 AM on 15 February 2020Earth is heating at a rate equivalent to five atomic bombs per second
Michael,
Thanks for the reply. Actually, I think our numbers are pretty similar. If I adjust for the density of ice (as you suggest), I get almost exactly the same as you for the energy to melt the GL ice. You use 3.7 W/m2 for the imbalance and I used 6 W/m2 as the extra energy from a 1oC increase in temp. If all the 'extra' energy went into melting GL ice I calculated it was about 9+ years and you get about 10 years, so we are pretty close. I went a little farther and said that GL was 1/280 of earth's area and used that amount of energy to warm the ice (x3 because I assumed that earth would warm at least that much this century and the Artic is warming faster) and came out with 900 years to melt all of the ice in GL (assuming no further increase in temp and everything otherwise stays constant and continues in a linear fasion - no doubt false). That would produce a SLR of just over 2 feet by 2100, which seems pretty realistic, ignoring any other melting ice in the world. I used a little more ice than you (should melt longer) but I also used more energy than you (should melt faster). I'm not sure why you say the Stefan Boltzmann equation is not valid. It's a pretty simple equation "energy = constant x temp^4". I'm only looking for 1 significant figure to convince myself about what I'm reading is happening, and this seems to give it to me. I greatly appreciate your comments. I actually feel better about what I did because of what you did (maybe false confidence?).
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DennisHorne at 08:24 AM on 15 February 2020Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
@374. SkepticalBrian
Briefly, infrared is lost to space high in the troposphere where there is no water vapour. Adding CO2 causes this level to rise, where it is cooler, so less energy is radiated, causing Earth to warm. Water vapour certainly warms the surface and the atmosphere but it is CO2 and other non-condensable gases that govern the energy balance.
Have a look here too: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html
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