Climate shifts news round-up

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  • Reporting in Nature, researchers from Canada show that: “… anthropogenic forcing has had a detectable influence on observed changes in average precipitation within latitudinal bands, and that these changes cannot be explained by internal climate variability or natural forcing.” Whilst no-one wants to be quoted on record that the current flooding across Europe and England is related to climate change (although see some media sources), a Reuters article states an inconvenient truth: “floods force many to face climate change reality“.

Oh dear, here comes another expert on the Reef.

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peter_ridd.jpgThis time it is Dr. Peter Ridd (an expert in marine physics) who is claiming that there is an even greater swindle going on with respect to the Great Barrier Reef. The title of Dr. Ridd’s opinion piece dated 19th of July 2007, says it all – “The Great Barrier Reef Swindle”.

His thesis? Hundreds of scientists who work on the Great Barrier Reef are all also involved in the same sort of cover-up and conspiracy that we were told about in the Great Climate Change Swindle! Big news indeed.

Yes, same story, scientists make up the doom and gloom tale so that they can get lots of research money from unsuspecting agencies and donors.

Sound familiar? Jennifer Marohasy has written similar things in the past (and she loves his opinion piece!). Oh, and guess who Dr. Peter Ridd reports to in his role as Science Coordinator to the newly created” Australian Environment Foundation“? Continue reading →

When journalism fails!

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Piers Akerman, the conservative journalist from the Daily telegraph, with his extensive (sic) background in science is now an expert on … climate science! More so, apparently, than the Australian of the year Professor Tim Flannery or Australian Federation Fellow, Professor David Karoly. Just have a look at the latest contribution to his blog — a response to the ABC showing of the BBC production “The Climate Change Swindle“. Not that Ackerman hasn’t been wrong before.

Apparently Akerman knows something that scientists from the best academies in the world don’t know, and that is that climate change is bunk. Do not get me wrong here: true skeptic arguments make important contributions to the debate on global warming and climate change. This is actually the way science works – by continually criticizing its ideas, and by thereby improving its accuracy and veracity. Continue reading →

Photographs from the coldwater bleaching event (17/07)

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An update with recent photographs from the 2007 cold-water bleaching event at Heron Island (from Dr Selina Ward, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Queensland). At high tide, the bleaching (loss of the symbiotic algae) is clearly evident in the branching coral from the submerged reef flat (left); at low tide the exposure of massive corals (center) and branching corals (right) results in significant levels of mortality. See my post below (“Winter bleaching again on the southern Great Barrier Reef”) for further comment.

 

Winter bleaching again on the southern Great Barrier Reef.

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Unusually cold weather on the southern Great Barrier Reef has triggered localized bleaching on the reef crest at Heron Island. Low tide, strong winds and unusually cold wintry weather in July 2007 has caused the top few centimeters of coral in the intertidal sections of the reef to bleach. Cold bleaching has been reported before at Heron Island by others during 2003, and is very similar to bleaching that occurs when water gets too warm.

So, is this event a sign of global climate change?

I don’t think we have enough evidence to say this right now. Some models, however, suggest that the southern Great Barrier Reef may experience colder winters with a weakening if the south Pacific gyre, which runs down the east coast of Australia and normally pushes warm water southward. Certainly, colder years tend to follow strong El Nino (warm) years. So far we have seen winter bleaching on the southern Great Barrier Reef in 1999, 2003 and now in 2007. In the three cases, the preceding years 1998, 2002 and 2006 were very warm years and saw extensive coral bleaching on the southern Great Barrier Reef.

Perhaps a passing meteorologist could work this one out for us. If there is a connection to climate change, then we might need to consider the effect of corals stressed out in summer that are then stressed again in the following winter.

Cold water Bleaching at Heron Island in July 2003 cold-water-bleaching.jpg

Australian Academy of Sciences rebuts skeptics swindle.

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It would seem that no one who has any credibility supports the recent airing of the climate skeptic film, ‘The great global warming swindle’. Here is the press release from Australia’s most exalted science body. It is also worthwhile going to the specifics of the Academy’s rebuttal (www.science.org.au/reports/index.htm).

Thursday 12 June 2007 : Verdict remains the same: the CO2 is guilty

The Australian Academy of Science maintains the view that recent global warming is caused by unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere, despite claims made in a recent documentary. Continue reading →

Barrier Reef ‘can adapt’ to warmer times

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  • Updated (13/07) – See Dr van Oppen’s response below.

So said a headline in The Australian this morning.

Based on a study coming from the lab of Dr Madeleine van Oppen, the article made the amazing leap from a study in which scientists have found that many corals have several varieties of symbionts to saying that the Great Barrier Reef can adapt to climate change.

And it wasn’t the papers fault (which was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Coral Reefs – doi 10.1007/s00338-007-0244-8).  This is actually what the senior investigator on the paper, Dr van Oppen, said “”This flexibility discovered in our research is important in understanding the past evolutionary success of these coral species and their future survival capacity in the face of changing climate,”

Continue reading →

Swindled – an evening lost

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After putting the kids to bed, I got my mug of cocoa and sat down to watch The Great Climate Change Swindle. Let’s call it ‘Swindle’ because that is how I felt once it had rolled out across Australia.What I was rather disappointed by was the attempt to sell me, the average citizen, a series of thinly disguised half-truths about the lack of a linkage between carbon dioxide and global temperature, and then how the activity of that vicious orb in the sky was driving the climate.

The dulcet tones of Durkin waxed and waned, through the ‘facts’ and how dodgy scientists must be – I must have dozed off, but I seemed to come to as I was told that Margaret Thatcher had started the equivalent of Marxist, greenie plot called Climate Change so she could get into nuclear energy. Wow, I never knew!

Continue reading →

Further commentary on the “Swindle”

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From a colleague and good friend of mine, Dr. Paul Marshall, (Acting Director – Climate Change, Great Barrier Marine Park Authority):

“It is extremely frustrating to see the inordinate influence these so-called climate skeptics have on the broader community’s perception of climate change. Uncertainty and doubt about the reality and causes of climate change can no longer be justified in the face of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s findings represent the consensus of thousands of the world’s leading experts, developed through a highly scrutinised and transparent process, and adopted by the majority of the world’s governments, including Australia and the USA. None of us want climate change to be real, and we certainly don’t want to think that we might be the cause of it. But denial and self-delusion are luxuries that we cannot afford. Ecosystems are already beginning to decline and people are starting to suffer due to extremes in environmental conditions that will only get worse with climate change. Anyone who has seen the effects that abnormally high water temperatures have on coral reefs can not sit back and hope that climate change isn’t happening, or that it will simply fix itself. Mass coral bleaching has already caused lasting damage to sections of the Great Barrier Reef. While we have been lucky compared to many other reef areas (some of which lost 50-90% of their corals in 1998 alone) the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is taking the threat of climate change very seriously. If we have any hope of helping coral reefs survive climate change, it will require a concerted and dedicated effort to reduce the effects that our activities are having on the world’s climate.” Continue reading →