This Is What Overwarming Looks Like

http://vimeo.com/15028423

“We have to believe what we are witnessing with our own eyes — floods, fires, melting ice and feverish heat: from smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Pakistan, to soaring temperatures in the US and a deteriorating landscape in the High Arctic, our planet seems to be having a breakdown. It’s not just a portent of things to come but real signs of very troubling climate change already under way.”

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlashof/this_is_what_global_warming_lo.html

NRDC Advocacy Website

“Tell Congress not to weaken Clean Air Act protections : As the EPA prepares to set standards for global warming pollution from power plants, refineries and other major polluters, some members of Congress want to weaken the Clean Air Act and give industries free rein to dump harmful pollution into our air…”

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/09/37-states-set-nighttime-high-temperature-records-this-summer.php

“With January to August 2010 found to be tied for the hottest year on record by NOAA, new analysis from NRDC shows that it wasn’t just daytime temperatures that’ve been soaring. In fact, 37 states in the US set record high nighttime temperatures this summer…”

Ocean Latte Swirl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Atlantic_hurricane_season

Somebody took a big spoon and starting stirring the Atlantic and the Pacific, and this is what we got : ocean-scale coffee cream swirls – a cluster of major storms with the potential to wreak significant havoc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pacific_typhoon_season

Are records being broken ? Yes. Is it all getting worse, really ? Probably :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/16/2010-hurricane-season-records-jeff-masters-global-warming/

Just So You Don’t Know

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the backbone of the British Civil Service (the unelected slice of governance), the people who helpfully retrieve UK citizens from Indonesian prison cells, Colombian drug kidnaps or Egyptian terrorists, or even France if you lose your passport, all your money, all your plastic, your keys and your mobile phone whilst on a picnic, (yes, Sarah, I’m talking about you), have trouble detecting Climate Change in the extreme weather events currently going on :-

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=22831648

“Is climate change responsible for natural disasters? : 09 September 2010 : Extreme rainfall in Pakistan and high temperatures in Russia have recently raised questions about how much climate change could be to blame. Without strong scientific evidence it is difficult to know whether climate change is a factor and if we can expect more of these types of events in future. Our understanding is that climate change is likely to increase the frequency of such extreme heat and rainfall events and while we can’t relate these recent events directly to climate change, they are a reminder of how damaging extreme climate events can be and why we should be concerned to limit the level of climate change…”

But, fortunately, being rational, they are going to set about finding out :-

“…A group of scientists from some of the world’s leading meteorological organisations, including the UK’s Met Office got together for a discussion on the Attribution of Climate-related Events (ACE). FCO staff in Houston have been supporting this as part of an initiative between the Met Office, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). UK and US scientists will work together with the UK Met Office, NOAA and NCAR to carry out attribution experiments to better enhance their understanding of the scientific basis to climate events. Another of the ACE’s aims will be to provide clear statements on the meaning and implications of the scientific findings of natural disasters so policy leaders and governments can make informed judgments…”

Expect the Climate Change sceptics to go wild (or at least a little flagrant) about this one !

Caroline Spelman Shrugged

The British Government is about to announce that the people be left to the ravages of Climate Change and cope by heaving-ho and a rolling-up of the sleeves and display war-time grittedness through voluntary “Big Society” :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/britain-must-adapt-to-inevitable-climate-change-warns-minister-2077175.html

“Britain must adapt to ‘inevitable’ climate change, warns minister : As experts call for action now, the coalition withholds green funding and appeals to private enterprise : By Matt Chorley and Jonathan Owen : Sunday, 12 September 2010 : Britons must radically change the way they live and work to adapt to being “stuck with unavoidable climate change” the Government will caution this week, as it unveils a dramatic vision of how society will be altered by floods, droughts and rising temperatures. The coalition will signal a major switch towards adapting to the impact of existing climate change, away from Labour’s heavy emphasis on cutting carbon emissions to reverse global temperature rises. Caroline Spelman, the Tory Secretary of State for the Environment, will use her first major speech on climate change since taking office to admit that the inevitable severe weather conditions will present a “survival-of-the- fittest scenario”, with only those who have planned ahead able to thrive. Adapting to climate change will be “at the heart of our agenda”, she is expected to say…”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7997668/Climate-change-is-inevitable-says-Caroline-Spelman.html

“Climate change is inevitable, says Caroline Spelman : Britain can no longer stop global warming and must instead focus on adapting to the ‘inevitable’ impacts of climate change such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels, Government ministers will warn this week. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published : 13 Sep 2010 : For the past few years Government policy has concentrated on trying to make people turn off lights and grow their own vegetables in an effort to bring down carbon emissions. But as global greenhouse gases continue to increase, with the growth of developing countries like China and India, and the public purse tightens, the focus will increasingly be on adapting to climate change. The Government will set out plans to protect power stations from flooding and ensure hospitals can cope with water shortages during dry summers….”

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Are You Ready for Pakistan ?

Compassion fatigue appears to have set in early in the Western Media – yet the existential problems of simple human survival, health, shelter, food and clean drinking water have only just started in large parts of Pakistan.

I was speaking with a contact recently who is just about to go out East to help coordinate an emergency mission in the region, and my first question was, “Are you ready for Pakistan ?”, because I don’t think anybody “parachuting” into the country will be.

Plus, this may be the worst crisis that the world’s humanitarian network has faced in the last half Century, but it’s not the only one ongoing and just about to start :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pacific_typhoon_season

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Atlantic_hurricane_season

Human interest stories have been the bread and butter of holiday media for decades – now is the time to roll cameras for the never-ending rollercoaster of disaster Climate Change is turning out to be.

It’s been raining really, really heavily, catastrophically somewhere on the planet practically non-stop since the beginning of the year.

Surely that’s not just a story, that’s a whole narrative ?

And it’s about weather, too, every journalist’s favourite subject.

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Flogging a Dead Non-Scandal

Despite the fact that Robin McKie killed off Climategate on 1st August 2010 in his article for The Observer (thankfully, Will Hutton was away, allowing Robin McKie to venge forcefully) :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/01/climate-change-robin-mckie

it seems that the Climate Change deniers simply cannot let go of the dead story and bury it. Benny Peiser of the adroitly named “Global Warming Policy Foundation” (suggested motto “We want policies to guarantee Climate chaos” ?), is to publish a report at the end of the month written by Andrew Montford, of Bishop Hill web log fame :-

http://www.thegwpf.org/climategate/1204-investigation-into-climategate-inquiries-announced.html

Sorry to say, but this will be a “we told you so” affair :-

1. We told you so here first – it will be roundly criticised by those who are expert in the subjects of Climate Change and environmental policy.

2. We told you so here first – it will contain a number of significant Scientific claims that will not stand up to close scrutiny.

3. We told you so here first – it will sell.

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Newsnight : Complain to the BBC

I don’t expect much from it in terms of any kind of sensible, relevant reply, but here’s my two eurocents’ worth, as loaded at :-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/

The BBC are undergoing a review on balance in Science reporting. They need to get Climate Change right, and that could start by one of their programme editors actually trying to understand what programmes like this do to an unprepared or semi-prepared audience.

The Newsnight audience have been left with the view that “maybe Climate Change is not so bad after all”, which is the worst take-home message they could be given.

See further down the post for e-mail traffic related to the Newsnight broadcast of 23rd August 2010.

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What a Disaster (2)

By now, astute readers of the “research paper that kills off Climate Change damages” will have noticed the classic Roger Pielke Jr-ism contained within its inner sanctum rationale :-

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/study-finds-no-link-tying-disaster-losses-to-human-driven-warming/

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS3092.1

Let’s spell it out :-

What do you get when you compare an exponentially rising trend (economic losses from Climate Change damage) with another two exponentially rising trends (human population growth and economic development), and use the last two to factor away the first ?

That’s right – no trend at all !

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What a Disaster !

Apparently, there’s no link between mounting insurance losses from natural disasters and manmade Climate Change :-

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/study-finds-no-link-tying-disaster-losses-to-human-driven-warming/

Well, that’s alright then, I can just forget all about Global Warming and go and focus on something more important instead.

Thanks Andy Revkin for lightening my load, and releasing oceans of deep joy into my life :-

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Let Others Move First

Nick Clegg, the British Deputy Prime Minister says that the international response to the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan is “absolutely pitiful” :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/16/nick-clegg-pakistan-floods

People won’t be moved. There’s no use hoping for an outpouring of charitable giving and energetic aid organisation – the world is suffering too many ongoing parallel disasters to be able to scramble effectively for this – the biggest ever (probably).

A similar situation exists with Climate Change policy, or rather the incredible inertia against taking the obvious first steps towards meaningful Carbon Dioxide emissions reductions.

People are too busy with their Facebook, their Twitter, their own personal financial nemeses (is that the plural of “nemesis”, really ?) to be able to form a coherent “movement”, as Bill McKibben, Al Gore and others wish us to mobilise into :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/18/extreme-weather-climate-debate

“Why has extreme weather failed to heat up climate debate? The world is experiencing the hottest weather on record but politicians have failed to respond. They need a wake-up call…”

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They Call It Precipitation…

…we call it unstoppable megadeath.

We always thought Bangladesh would be the first country for complete Climate catastrophe, but it seems that awful honour has gone to Pakistan instead.

The countries in South Asia need to share data on rainfall, river volumes and the like :-

http://www.amankiasha.com/articles_cat.asp?catId=1&id=96

http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/31/stories/2010073165890900.htm

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167/2010/03/12-155822-1.htm

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE67B10D._CH_.2400

Stormy Weathered

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jX_KetVCMo64AOZxSMudPWArFrJgD9HK87PG0

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100813/full/news.2010.409.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dtUDtl0NN8

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Make Me a Model

Statistical analysis of the raw data on Global Warming suffers from two major pitfalls :-

1. You are looking at the combined effects from several causative sources. Unless you have the means to distinguish the various factors, you cannot apply statistical techniques to the data and expect to get anything truly meaningful out. All that can be said, at best, is, “The Globe. Still Warming.”, as the warming trend over a long enough period of time has managed to stand out over the short-term variations.

2. Looking at the data purely by eye, some of the warming or cooling effects are clearly short-term, others longer-term; so picking a range of years/months/seasons at random, or according to some bias, is likely to distort the analysis. This is known as “cherry-picking”. The results of cherry-picking include the fallacious and discredited claim that, “Global Warming stopped in 1998″, or the much more crafty and misleading, “There has been no statistically significant Global Warming since 1998″.

Some researchers are content just to point to the overall effect of the raw data – global temperatures on land and at sea are rising sharply and the charts should be sufficient to understand the basic problem.

However, some people still contest that Global Warming is taking place, or that if it is, it isn’t serious. This then, is the cue to do an in-depth analysis into the known factors in global temperatures, and to attempt to “deduct” obvious short-term warming and cooling features in order to eyeball the underlying trends :-

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BBC Hedges

[ YouTube Credit : The link to the video above comes thanks to the endeavours of that most fair and balanced individual James "no net global warming since 1998" Delingpole. "No net global warming since 1998" ? James ! You're quoting Pat Michaels, but did he perhaps make that up ? Or was it something that Christopher Monckton might have made up ? ]

The BBC puts the blame on Climate Change – almost – in a report on the Russian heatwave-wildfire disaster.

But they just can’t bring themselves to admit it as an organisation – and put the claims into the mouths of others – using quotation marks in the headline (‘partly to blame’) and ascribing the opinion to “researchers”, the “UK Met Office” and “experts” :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10919460

“10 August 2010 : Climate change ‘partly to blame’ for sweltering Moscow : By Katia Moskvitch : Science reporter, BBC News : Global climate change is partly to blame for the abnormally hot and dry weather in Moscow, cloaked in a haze of smoke from wildfires, say researchers. The UK Met Office said there are likely to be more extreme high temperatures in the future. Experts from the environmental group WWF Russia have also linked climate change and hot weather to raging wildfires around the Russian capital. Meteorologists say severe conditions may linger for several more days…”

Well, I’ve got a bit of a question to pose – it might not be possible to ascribe the current weather conditions in Russia (and Pakistan and China and and and…) to Climate Change, statistically. I mean no one weather event can be said to have been caused 100% by Climate Change. But would these extreme weather events have happened without Climate Change ?

That is by far the most important question to ask, and Michael Tobis does just that :-

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/moscow-doesnt-believe-in-this.html

“…Are the current events in Russia “because of” “global warming”? To put the question in slightly more formal terms, are we now looking at something that is no longer a “loading the dice” situation but is a “this would, practically certainly, not have happened without human interference” situation? Can we phrase it more formally? “Is the average time between persistent anomalies on this scale anywhere on earth in the undisturbed holocene climate much greater than a human lifetime?” In other words, is this so weird we would NEVER expect to see it at all?…”

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Death by Hot Tub

It’s been a bad month or so for ignominious ends in unusually hot and sticky conditions : drunk Russians drowning as they try to cool off from a once-in-a-thousand-year heatwave centred on Moscow; hundreds of Chinese swept away; a Darwin award surely going to the man who died whilst participating in the World Sauna Championships, thousands of Pakistanis snatched by flood waters, and then there’s poor Matthew Simmons, leader of the Peak Oilers, bursting his aorta in a private spa :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7891040/Drunk-Russians-drowning-due-to-heat-wave.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/08/10/sauna-championships-tragedy-the-weird-and-frankly-lethal-lengths-people-go-just-to-win-a-contest-115875-22476900/

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/08/09/controversial-peak-oilist-matthew-simmons-dies/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/matthew-simmons-investment-banker-peak-oil-theory-advocate-dies-at-67.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/08/09/without-matt-simmons-has-peak-oil-well-peaked/

“AUGUST 9, 2010 : Without Matt Simmons: Has Peak Oil, Well, Peaked? : By Michael Corkery : Matt Simmons, the maverick investment banker who championed the concept of peak oil, died of a heart attack in a hot tub in Maine. He was 67. Simmons is best known for raising the alarm, in books, in lectures, television interviews and to anyone who would listen, that the world’s oil reserves had peaked. The concept of “peak oil” wasn’t new when Simmons wrote Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, in 2005. In fact, peak oil was first posited by a geophysicist named M. King Hubbert in the 1950s who predicted that world oil supply would peak in 1995. But Simmons helped to being the theory to the mass media, after traveling to Saudi Arabia in 2003 to research that nation’s secretive data on oil reserves, or the amount of oil able to be pumped out of the ground. His book became an instant classic among conspiracy theorists…”

Hey ! Don’t disrespect the dead ! He made a very valid contribution to the world’s understanding that the Fossil Fuel free ride won’t last forever, and is, in fact, stopping short as I write…

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Christiana Figueres : The Elusive Saucepan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWsQscb6lfM

http://unfccc.int/files/press/news_room/application/pdf/100806_speaking_notes.pdf

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has just held its regular half yearly conference to further the working parties of the Kyoto Protocol :-

http://unfccc.int
http://unfccc.int/2860.php

A number of Press commentators have been critical of proceedings, indicating that there has not been much progress at Bonn, and in fact the conference could show some ground having been lost :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9213b40-a180-11df-9656-00144feabdc0.html

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Save Oxfam

In an unguarded moment, I allowed myself to watch television, and found myself watching this campaign advertisement from Oxfam.

The first thing I felt was empathy with the unhappy woman shown in the opening sequence, as the narrator told us that her baby had just been washed away by floodwaters. How dreadful for her. How awful for her child.

The second thing I thought was how shocking it was for an aid and development agency to use this person’s grief as a marketing tool.

The third thing I thought was to ask myself why the makers of the appeal didn’t mention the aggravation to the environment caused by Climate Change, but instead just refered to “more people than ever are dying because of floods, drought and lack of clean water”.

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About Last Winter

So, was the exceptionally cold winter 2009 – 2010 in North America, Europe and parts of Asia a sign of Global Cooling ?

Noooo. Not a bit of it. It was down to “internal variability” of the climate system :-

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL043830.shtml

“GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 37, L14703, 6 PP., 2010 : doi:10.1029/2010GL043830 : Northern Hemisphere winter snow anomalies: ENSO, NAO and the winter of 2009/10 : Seager et al…conclude that the negative NAO [North Atlantic Oscillation] and El Nino [positive ENSO] event were responsible for the northern hemisphere snow anomalies of winter 2009/10…”

Expect fireworks and/or damp squibs from denier-sceptic quarters.

The Population Question (2)

Image Credit : Lauren Manning under Creative Commons Licence : “World Population Growth From 2008 to 2050″

Who could have guessed that my previous post would not be the final word on “The Population Question” ?

As anybody who has ever looked at this question and its surrounding myths will know, there is layer upon layer of mis-fact, swirl around swirl of supposition and conjecture on the topic of human-to-land density in the imaginings of the newspaper-reading populace.

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Climate Denial Melting Away

Just the facts, Dan.

“There is nothing left of Climategate but a puddle of melted delusions.”

http://consequence09.org/2010/07/video-unveiling-of-climate-deniers-ice-sculpture-outside-u-s-senate/

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/42339/

The Year of Unceasing Rain

Long before the world recovers from one major extreme weather disaster, another has started :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/taiwan-natural-disasters

It’s time to stop thinking in terms of discrete events, and start looking at the synergy of these bouts of excessive precipitation.

Changes in the patterns of heavy rainfall are turning into a rolling disaster, on and on.

Newshounds look for survival stories, tales of recovery. But what if flooding comes repeatedly, year after year, season after season, every couple of years after every couple of years ? If there’s no “getting over it all”, or “getting back to normal”, will the mainstream media have to readjust their spectacles ?

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Blackout Asia : Crispy Baking

While Europe has been enjoying an early Summer, elsewhere in the world high air temperatures have been record-breaking.

When the heat gets this bad, public services need to provide air-conditioned community shelters as a key adaptational strategy.

But any plans of this nature are being thwarted by power shortages, for example, in India and Pakistan :-

http://www.ecanadanow.com/world/2010/06/01/200-dead-in-india-heatwave/

“200 Dead In India Heatwave”, 01 June 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/07/pakistan-energy-policy-proving-deadly

“Pakistan’s heatwave and a deadly lack of energy policy : The blackout-blighted country should be free to accept development help from China, and not rely on US financial aid : Nosheen Iqbal”, 07 June 2010

Clearly, the time has never been more right for clean, renewable energy.

Northern Summer’s Here

Yes, why does the heat dip in the Stratosphere, when it bumps up in the Troposphere ?

And why has the temperature in the Stratosphere averaged downwards over the years as the temperature in the Troposphere has pushed upwards on average over the same period ?

Wouldn’t have anything to do with…Anthropogenic Global Warming, would it ?

I believe it might…

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Polar Bear : Poster Child

So, I’m standing in the G2 theatre at the School of Oriental and African Studies, after the “Sceptic Backlash” event, talking with two Climate Change activists, one Irish, one American.

The question arises : since our lifestyles are causing deadly Climate Change for people in other parts of the world, maybe we should have communications based around pictures of suffering children ?

I disagree. I point out that when the environmentalists put out posters about Polar Bears, that the audience pretty quickly realised that the Polar Bears were being used as a “poster child” for Climate Change, and they started to mock the campaigning.

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Nightmare on Easy Street

Every now and again, some well-meaning, or even lightheartedly jokey relative or friend lets me know I should calm down with the story of the risk of Climate catastrophe as it’s (a) not effective; (b) not necessary or (c) way off the end of the scale. Apparently I’m crying wolf, but there’s not even a messy puppy in the neighbourhood.

There are two narratives at work here. One is that people don’t like being preached too (neither do I), and they feel that the sum total of Climate Change communications amounts to somebody high up the authority chain telling them to change their behaviour, somehow making the common man (and woman) responsible for a problem that should actually be fixed by the governments, who have the power (or large companies and international corporations, who have the financial resources).

The moral of nearly every cultural telling of the Climate Change story is “ten things you can do to make a difference”, and a lot of people feel it will mean shivering in the dark with no car and more tax. People are so not into self-sacrifice and abstention from consumerism, and they react badly, even to the extent of skin rashes, to the fear of micromanaged austerity being thrust upon them.

But that’s not why I talk about Climate Change.

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