It’s getting hot in here
A baby Koel bird sat in my garden yesterday afternoon screaming in distress at the extreme heat wave. It sat there in the 41-degree weather, confused and making repetitive loud noises. All I could do was put water in the garden and hope it would cool it down, but I knew its chances of survival weren’t good. A few hours earlier, my mum’s friend had called, very upset, after seeing dead birds on the footpath who had fallen out of trees during the heat of the day.
Around NSW, many birds just like that baby Koel have died from the extreme temperatures. You rarely hear people talk about birds when they’re talking about global warming. The impacts on animals of extreme weather events usually aren’t considered important in the political debate. But when birds start dropping dead out of trees, you know something’s wrong.
A mere heat wave seems like a lucky break for Sydney when Victorians are suffering from floods and Queenslanders coping with both floods and cyclones, but it hasn’t been a pleasant week for those without air conditioners. Since records were kept in 1858, Sydney and surrounding areas have never experienced such consistently high temperatures.
Birds aren’t the only animals that suffer in extreme heat. Whatever affects the animal kingdom affects humans too. In the European heat wave of 2003, more than 70,000 people died as a result, mostly the elderly, who didn’t have the resilience to survive the rising heat. NSW Health reported that nearly 100 people so far had been treated in emergency departments for heat-related illness in the past six days.
In 2004, The World Health Organisation concluded that the warming that has occurred since the 1970s (of 0.75oC) is causing over 140, 000 deaths annually, over what would have otherwise occurred without climate change. They explain that extreme high air temperatures contribute directly to deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Globally, the number of reported weather-related natural disasters has more than tripled since the 1960s. Every year, these disasters result in over 60, 000 deaths, mainly in developing countries.
The World Health Organisation has also recently singled out climate change’s impacts on floods, noting that floods are “increasing in frequency and intensity” and “contaminate freshwater supplies, heighten the risk of water-borne diseases, create breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes, cause drownings and physical injuries, damage homes and disrupt the supply of medical and health services.”
It is not news to Australian Governments that climate change brings more extreme weather, including flooding. In 2010 the Scientific Advisory Group to the Queensland Government’s Inland Flooding Study advised “an increase in rainfall intensity is likely” and “the available scientific literature indicates this increased rainfall intensity to be in the range of 3–10 per cent per degree of global warming”. Warmer ocean temperatures lead not just to heavier rain, but also to stronger cyclones.
Some Australian supermarkets are worried about fresh produce looking less-than-perfect; but we have bigger things to worry about. Rising temperatures and variable rainfall, the World Health Organisation explains, are likely to decrease the production of staple foods. This will affect not just Australia but also many of the poorest countries in the world– with staple food production reduced by up to 50% by 2020 in some African countries. This in turn increases malnutrition and undernutrition, which already cause 3.5 million deaths every year.
Why isn’t this front-page news? I don’t understand how a certain small group of powerful, complacent polluters can still deny the existence of climate change when we have not just TV images showing devastation from extreme weather events exacerbated by warmer ocean temperatures, but reports documenting deaths from climate change.
It’s not like anyone debates other World Health Organisation reports. It’s not like we point to a report saying that, for example, over 16,000 died from swine flu and have a serious “debate” about whether swine flu is real. Maybe it’s because no one profits from selling the virus that cause swine flu; whereas the operating profits before tax from the mining sector in Australia are in excess of $45 billion per year.
Not only can Australian polluters emit as much pollution as they like without a price on carbon, they’re not even being asked to help chip in to pay for the reconstruction after our extreme weather events.
Maybe it’s too late for the baby bird that was in my garden this afternoon, but it’s not too late for thousands of other animals and humans that still have a chance of survival. Let’s not blow that chance.
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Write out 100 times “weather isn’t climate”. Maybe once we stop giving the other side ammunition by misunderstanding the science as badly as them, we can make some headway.
In Rose’s defence, the unprecedented nature of the Sydney heat wave does confer it with some climate change debate relevance.
Beyond that, however, Bogdanovist is correct. If “I don’t understand how…polluters can still deny the existence of climate change” is literally true, then Rose has a major problem. I don’t think you can be an effective advocate if you don’t understand your opposition. Unless you’re only interested in preaching to the choir.
We’re having the coolest summer i can remember down here in Melbourne, i think i’ve had the air con on about 5 times in 3 months!
Anna, it’s funny how you don’t realise that the UN WHO, like the UN IPCC is another alarmist organisation which most people ignore.
Yes people do question WHO reports, but perhaps not in your closed world. For instance your swine flu analogy. The WHO hypes the death toll, a pandemic to kill millions. Then reality. The flu strain is relatively mild, kills few, and the expensive medicine reduces the illness by a few hours. Who made the money? Not sceptics but big pharmaceutical.
tones9, just as a point of clarification, do you think the globe is warming? I see that you are taking a stance against ‘alarmists’, but do you really believe that the globe is not warming?
Alarmists are people like Flannery who yesterday claimed “The real world data is tracking the worst case scenario. For the first decade of this century, long projection we’re actually tracking 6 degrees trend in terms of global temp increase
sea level rise and so forth are all tracking at worst case scenario.”
The reality is that real world data for the first decade of this century show cooling.
tones9,
I don’t want to badger you, so tell me to bugger off if you don’t want to answer, but I would like to know where you stand on global warming.
So simple question: Do you think the globe is warming or not?
You mentioned that the first decade is cooling, but do you accept that it was still the hottest decade in a long time?
peebee, it’s a peabrain question.
yes the globe has warmed. so what?
anything exceptional?
how are those models going?
Tones thinks that the world just warms. It just happens. No cause or explanation needed. So sciency.
The world has warmed and cooled for millions of years. Milankovitch cycles are well understood. That’s the sciency part.
Solar cycles and forcing are not well understood, like most of climate science. Just read the IPCC AR4 for hundreds of statements about the enormous uncertainty.
Your desire for certainty and simplicity belongs in the category of beliefs in ancient gods.
Tones9,
If you believe the globe is heating, why do you repeatedly trot out ‘The reality is that real world data for the first decade of this century show cooling’ statement?
Oh Peebee, are you deliberately simple?
I said ‘the world has warmed and cooled’.
The past decade has cooled.
tones9,
Oh tones, are you being deliberately obtuse?
I was asking about the present, not about the past. However by your response you are implying that you don’t believe the globe is warming. (why don’t you come out and just say it? – have you no strength in your conviction?)
Do you believe the last decade was the hottest in a long time?
As for your statment about ‘the past decade has cooled’. Do you realise your evidence is based on using a specific data set over a time period that is not statistically significant?
The specific data set is the one preferred by the IPCC.
The time period is the one specified by the IPCC for 0.2C warming.
The time period is the one Garnaut and Flannery invite us to compare projections with real world data.
Garnaut and Flannery say real world data is tracking for 6C warming this century.
The world has cooled over the past 10 years.
The world has warmed over the past 100 years.
The world has cooled over the past 1000 years.
And your point is?
tones9,
I just want clarification, you are not very clear with what you are saying.
You do not respond to a direct question. Rather you spout random facts which is some cases is misleading because they are not statistically significant (and continue to do so even when this is pointed out to you).
Furthermore, how do you know the world has cooled over the last 1,000 years (not that I am doubting you, I would just like to know where this one comes from)?
Peabrain, a few facts will do you some good.
Try doing some reading.
tones9,
I have said this before and your last post confirms it, you are nasty. However, reading your posts I can understand why. You are inconsistent with what you say and at the same time you believe that you can’t be wrong (as you know this is impossible). You reticience to put down for what you really feel shows a deep seated insecurity. You only come back is to abuse whoever questions your inaccurate dribble.
Obviously you have nothing to back up your 1,000 year statement.
“Milankovitch cycles are well understood” said tones9. Indeed they are. They predict that Earth should be cooling. It isn’t. Gee, I wonder what could be going on?
tones9 #6
Finding quality evidence to support this absurd assertion will be impossible, as none exists.
Fummy one Mark. We’ll know in a few thousand years.
kdkd are you saying evidence used by the IPCC is not quality evidence?
toes9
I’m telling you that you’re delusional if you think the 1st decade of the 21st century showed a cooling trend.
tones9 #20
So you’re claiming that the IPCC – the body which you earlier said was “alarmist and most people ignore” – shows that the average global temperature from 1990-2000 was higher than the average global temperature from 2001-2010.
Can you provide the reference(s) for that claim please?
Let me guess, that’s actually not what you were suggesting at all.
kdkd I’m telling you that you’re delusional if you think it didn’t.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/to:2011/trend
still waiting for someone to show me data supporting garnaut and flannery’s claim of global temp tracking towards 6c this century.
tones#9
Two things. Firstly you don’t appear to have a grasp of the meaning of statistical significance.
Second two can play at that game. Seeing as the data I’m presenting for your time period is more complete than yours, and the sign of 3/4 of the lines there are the same, it casts grave doubt on your shallow conclusion.
6ºC is the upper limit, of temperature change predicted for the end of this century. The mid-range and even lower estimates on a business as usual scenario are pretty scary looking too.
kdkd thanks for proving the IPCC preferred dataset shows cooling.
Thanks also for proving that no matter which data you look at, none of them are tracking anywhere near the minimum IPCC projections of 0.2C, let alone the upper end.
Oh yes, sea surface temp also decreased last decade.
tones9
Continuing to repeat a false assertion does not make it true. I’ll rephrase the point you’re trying to make in a scientifically valid manner for you:
If we take the change in temperature between 2001 and 2011, we find that of the four independent data sets available one shows a negative trend that is statisically indistinguishable from a trend of zero, therefore showing that there is insufficient data to reach a sound conclusion from that small amount of data. However, if we add the three other three data sets, all have a trend which is poistive indicating that the first dataset is anomalous for this short time period, and that more context (i.e. a longer time period), and a greater range of information (e.g. ecosystem changes, frequency of extreme weather events and so on) should be used in order to draw conclusions with any validity.
OK, tones9, I’ve revised my opinion of your argument. It’s either stupid or delusional. Your choice as to which one.
tones9:
Do the IPCC disregard the other three data sets I pointed to? Is that what you’re trying to claim? Again that’s either a stupid, or a delusional position. I leave it to you to decide which one. Please let us know once you’ve made the choice.
I just want someone out there who does not believe the climate is warming to explain why the sea level is rising by an average of 3mm per year according to NASA satellite data.
I realise that about 2/3 of this rise is due to thermal expansion and 1/3 due to shrinking total mass of land-based ice, but if neither of these things are happening, why are the sea levels still rising?
So you want to reject the IPCC dataset, which projections are based on, because it’s too short. But other datasets over the same time period are OK?
With all your scientific knowledge, I’m still waiting for any real world data which supports the silly Garnaut and Flannery claims.
tones9, just as matter of interest, what statistical training have you had?
Rocket, the issue is not if there is warming, but if CO2 caused it.
The only evidence of a causal link is climate models.
The first decade in which these models is testable is 2001-2010.
The models projected minimum 0.2C warming.
We get air and sea cooling.
Sea level was projected to accelerate.
The satellite trend from 1992 has decreased from 3.4 to 3.2mm/yr.
Yes, but why is it rising at all if global temperatures are not rising (as you say)
tones9 #29
[So you want to reject the IPCC dataset] … blah blah blah
You’re trying to claim that the Hadcrut is only available from 2001 onwards? Oops. I am waiting for you to say something that does not make you look foolish. When you do I will say something that is neither arrogant nor insulting. Meanwhile don’t hold your breath.
#31 is also a poor attempt at logical contortions, goalpost moving and incorrect facts. You still need to make your choice.
Rocket, they are the figures.
Why is another issue.
For instance a recent paper suggested a third of sea level rise was due to ground water.
There is a lag between temp and sea level.
In 2010 sea level fell 25mm.
At one stage it was equal to 2000 levels.
kd I never claimed hadcrut was only available from 2001.
However thanks for your link showing the entire dataset.
It shows the long term warming rate is only 0.44 C per century.
It’s going to be a big effort to get up to 6C this century. That’s more than 12 times the long term rate.
tones9, with the skills demonstrated here, there’s a summer job going at an Adelaide Hills orchard I think you’d be really good at.
@ tones9,
there’s really only one question that needs answering:
WHAT IF YOU’RE WRONG?
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the nearly 2,000 experts in their relevant disciplines, appointed to the Intergovernmental (now there’s a cool word) Panel on Climate Change, are probably sincere in their belief that their extensive research shows that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real.
I’m not a climate scientist: I doubt that you are either.
So I trust the experts. the VAST MAJORITY of the experts.
They’re telling us that if we don’t change something really fast, the consequences are unthinkable. If we do make the necessary changes, we will have some short term transitional reductions in our excessive lifestyles and then go about our business.
SO: If the overwhelming majority of experts are right (sorry, you’re not one of them) we need to pull our finger out, NOW, or we risk the end of the world as we know it.
OR: If the overwhelming majority of experts are wrong, and a tiny minority, mostly consisting of PR professionals in the pay of fossil fuel companies, are right, then we can carry on blithely doing as we please, and there will be no problem.
If I’m wrong, and I get my way, we will all have to go without an extra jet ski or dirt bike and we’ll end up well positioned to ride out the coming end of the oil age (which even people like BP and Shell have admitted is inevitable).
If you’re wrong, and you get your way, billions of people will die or wish they had died, 60 % of the world’s species will face extinction, the world’s oceans will become a sulfur dioxide emitting sterile soup, and the world will effectively become hell on earth, within one hundred years.
What if I’m wrong? Meh. We’ve got some great windfarms now and those electric cars are handy now that we have no oil. Bummer that grandad had to spend his whole life in a house with only 3 bedrooms and ride a bicycle to his job building windfarms, but hey, things aren’t that bad.
WHAT IF YOU’RE WRONG?
It’s called risk management.
What are you trying to achieve?
is it impossible that you might be wrong?
tones9 #36
You appear to have some problems with innumeracy there. Last century’s warming rate was at least 1ºC. There’s no way we can take anything you seriously if everything you have to say contains elementary mistakes and long-discredited climate delusional talking points. Hint: go and find out about ‘confirmation bias’, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. You’ve got a nasty case of both.
kdkd you are remarkable at simultaneously displaying your ignorance and arrogance.
This is the raw data from YOUR link.
#Time series (hadcrut3) from 1850 to 2011
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.00447415 per year
‘From 1850′ does not mean last century.
It is 160 years of data.
The linear trend slope is 0.0044 C per year.
That is 0.44 C per century.
0.44 is not ‘at least 1′
Do you understand?
It’s quite simple.
I await your apology.
Captain Planet, I am not wrong.
I have presented real data here.
Nothing will ever change that.
I’m afraid your morbid fear is built on model projections which are unproven.
It seems you have ultimate respect for what you perceive to be authority.
These people have not only misled you about the current state of climate, but also the current knowledge of climate science.
You owe it to yourself to perform your own research on the IPCC.
Were there 2000 scientists? What were their qualifications?
How many agreed to the statement attributing warming to CO2?
How many contributed to the chapter on attribution?
Of those how many agreed?
How much science is explicitly un known according to the IPCC?
Best wishes
tones9
Why are you ignoring all the other data sets? Something to do with your summer job in the Adelaide hills I guess.
The hadcru data was the one you provided and showed 0.44/cent.
You are the fool who denied it.
I shouldn’t have to educate you about all of your graphs.
Awaiting your apology.
@tones9,
I think you are being deliberately obtuse.
I have not disputed any data you have posted. I will take your word for it that it is correct, as I lack the scientific credentials and years of professional experience to dispute it.
As, I suspect, you also lack the scientific credentials to assess it as correct. But that is irrelevant.
I am not morbidly fearful, and i have not been misled. I allow for the possibility that the conclusions of the IPCC may be wrong. Unfortunately you appear to be 100 % certain that you are right in your interpretation of the science.
This is quite a big statement for you to make and again, I suspect you are not qualified to make that judgement. Even if you were, the fact that others have analysed the same data as you, and come to different conclusions, means there is room to doubt the correctness of YOUR conclusions.
What you are saying is that you are guaranteed to be right, Anthropogenic Climate Change is false. That’s an incredibly arrogant intellectual position you’re taking.
I’m offering you the chance to rise above the petty bickering of throwing graphs and counter graphs at each other, and acknowledge that maybe you don’t know everything. Any lucid intellectual would agree there is a possibility they may be wrong.
And you may be wrong. I promise you, you may be wrong. Please re read my post from 11th Feb at 01:18 a.m. because you haven’t answered my question.
How can you justify advocating zero action…. knowing that you might be wrong in your conclusion? Knowing what the potential consequences might be?
captain, the only thing we know, to the best of our ability, is a small amount of recorded climate data. When I see the known data being misrepresented by activists, I know I’m right.
I also know how little we know about climate causation. I’d always known this but IPCC AR4 confirms it. Moreover climate models and their projections are unreliable and shouldn’t be relied upon.
I’m quite happy for you if you don’t want to do your own research. You are happy to accept statements from authority that billions of people will die.
However I believe they have the responsibility to provide evidence for their claims.
I’m certain that they haven’t.
I believe in the scientific method.
The precautionary principle does not exist in science.
The abuse of science is far more damaging than CO2.
tones9 #43
I didn’t deny that you could use the Hadcrut data to get an estimate of that figure. However in the context of the other data that would be a lower estimate. Your awfully high up on your cherry tree there, what with deliberately picking lower estimates (0.43ºC) and upper estimates (6ºC) in an attempt to mount the pretence that your argument has any validity. It’s a good job that you left your straw man at the bottom of the ladder to fall back on when you finally do come a-tumbling down
kdkd #46
I didn’t deny that you could use the Hadcrut data to get an estimate of that figure.
kdkd#39
You appear to have some problems with innumeracy there. Last century’s warming rate was at least 1ºC. There’s no way we can take anything you seriously if everything you have to say contains elementary mistakes and long-discredited climate delusional talking points. Hint: go and find out about ‘confirmation bias’, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. You’ve got a nasty case of both.
kdkd #46
Your awfully high up on your cherry tree there, what with deliberately picking lower estimates (0.43ºC) and upper estimates (6ºC) in an attempt to mount the pretence that your argument has any validity. It’s a good job that you left your straw man at the bottom of the ladder to fall back on when you finally do come a-tumbling down.
kdkd #33
Oops. I am waiting for you to say something that does not make you look foolish. When you do I will say something that is neither arrogant nor insulting. Meanwhile don’t hold your breath.
The ‘oops’ is your link to 0.43 trend. You cherry picked it.
The 6C is cherry picked by Garnaut and Flannery. Or should I say invented by.
Do you enjoy being proven wrong by your own words?
tones9
regarding #39. Let me spell it out for the hard or thinking. The other data sets show a warming of around 1ºC per century. For good measure taking it from 1910 2010 by itself isn’t good enough. We should look at all the available data. However, you appear to be chosing to ignore all but one data source.
Interestingly before it started contradicting their delusional position the deniers favourite dataset was the UAH sattelite data. But if the “facts” change then the goalposts must be moved.
kdkd I don’t know why I bother, but it is fun reading your ignorance.
Your link ‘last century’s warming was at least 1C’ showed the following:
Woodfortrees index is a fabricated dataset.
#Time series (gistemp) from 1880 to 2011.08
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.00586214 per year
That is 0.58 C/century
#Time series (uah) from 1978.92 to 2010.92
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.0141436 per year
That is 1.41 C/cent over 32 years.
Hadcrut 0.43/cent
So according to your selected datasets, the 2 which cover last century’s warming are nowhere near your 1C.
I use hadcrut because it is used by IPCC.
Even your preferred UAH was 0.09 last decade, less than half IPCC projections.
Nowhere near Garnaut and Flannerys 6C.
Tones9,
getting back to something we agree on: The earth has warmed over the last 100 years. What in your modest opinion would be the cause of that?
Before answering that, do you agree that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased over that time?
With your acceptence of the scientific method, do you consider CO2 a greenhouse gas?
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