Australia’s weird winter

Guest post by Blair Trewin. Blair is a senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre. He recently took the lead in writing the Special Climate Statement, Exceptional winter heat over large parts of Australia, issued 26th August 2009, updated 1st September 2009.

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Australia has just experienced an exceptionally warm August. Almost the entire country experienced above-average temperatures during the month, but the warmth was most extraordinary in the subtropics. Over most of the southern Northern Territory and the southern half of Queensland (away from the coast), maximum temperatures for August were more than 5°C above the long-term average. Maximum temperatures were the highest on record for August over 49% of Australia.

Averaged over Australia as a whole, maximum temperatures were 3.20°C above the long-term August average, and daily mean temperatures (day and night combined) were 2.47°C above average. Both values are the highest on record for August by close to a degree. In terms of how far the month was above normal, the maximum temperatures in August 2009 are also the highest on record for any month, breaking the record of +3.11°C set in April 2005; the daily mean temperatures rank second behind April 2005.

The month was marked by some individual days which were exceptionally hot for August, especially in northern NSW and Queensland. State records were set for August in both states (37.8°C at Mungindi and 38.5°C at Bedourie respectively). Perhaps more exceptional were the margins by which some records were broken, and the number of days on which previous records were exceeded. Collarenebri broke its pre-2009 August record by 5.4°C, and numerous other locations, including Murwillumbah, Moree, Gatton, Miles and Taroom, broke August records by 4°C or more. Such margins are not unheard of at exposed coastal sites – where everything has to go right to achieve an extreme high temperature (not only having a very hot air mass, but having the wind in the right direction to prevent conditions being moderated by sea breezes) – but are virtually unknown at inland locations.

Many locations exceeded pre-2009 August records on five or more days. An especially striking example was Windorah in western Queensland, which prior to 2009 had never reached 35°C in August. In 2009 it happened seven times, and their August record was lifted six times, eventually peaking at 38.0°C on the 29th.

The extremely warm August combined with generally above-average (but not record-breaking) temperatures in June and July to give record or near-record winter temperatures in many areas. Australian daily mean temperatures for winter (1.33°C above average) fell just 0.01°C short of the 1996 record, and maximum temperatures surpassed the record set in 2002. NSW, Victoria and South Australia all had their warmest winters on record, which may come as a surprise to residents of the latter two states, in a season which was distinguished more by an almost complete absence of significant cold than by any major warm extremes.

In terms of weather systems, the month was marked by a persistent high-pressure ridge over the subtropics, preventing cooler air from penetrating from the south into central and northern Australia (until the last two days of the month, by which time it was too late to make much difference). Pressures were also well below normal south of Australia, resulting in very strong and persistent westerlies south of Australia (which made it an extremely wet month in Tasmania). An interesting comparison exists with October 1988, which had very similar pressure patterns, and was also dry over the mainland and very wet in Tasmania. In October 1988 Australian mean temperatures were 2.16°C above average, which was a record at the time (it now ranks fourth). The difference of 0.31°C between the two months is close to the size of the warming trend over Australia in that 21-year period, and suggests that the long-term background warming trend is playing a role in increasing the frequency of high temperature extremes of the type seen in August 2009.

Al Gore’s blind spot on nuclear power

I’ve just started reading a book by William Tucker called ‘Terrestrial Energy‘. It’s really very good, and I’ll write up a full review of it here once I’ve finished it. But the reason for this post is to consider a quote from Al Gore that Tucker cites in the Preface, pages ix — x. It comes from his testimony, in March 2007, to the US Senate. Gore says the following, when asked about the possible role of nuclear power in combating global warming:

I think it’s likely to be a small part of it. I don’t think it will be a big part of the solution, Senator… I’m assuming that we will somehow find an answer to the problem of long-term storage of waste… I’m assuming that we will find an answer to the problem of errors by the operators of these reactors… But the main problem I think is economics. The problem is these things [nuclear reactors] are expensive, they take a long time to build, and at present, they only come in one size—extra-large….

There was quite a bit more said, and you can read the entire transcript of his conversation with Senators Isakson and Alexander, here. Gore added:

So I mean, I’m not a reflexive opponent of nuclear—I just happen to think it’s only going to play a small role….

He repeated much the same line in an interview on CBS television in July 2008, and in an interview with the Guardian newspaper in March 2009, so we can safely assume that the position he states above has not changed over the last few years. For those who follow the news on energy futures, you may recall what Gore said about renewable energy in July 2008:

America must commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and other clean sources within 10 years.

So Gore foresees the need for a transformational change in energy supply in a rapid time-frame, but considers that nuclear power is likely to have little or no role in this second industrial revolution. I will leave the matter of whether 100% renewables by 2020, or indeed any other time-frame, is realistic. Suffice to say that regular readers of this blog know that I have concluded that such a target is extraordinarily implausible, from many technical, logistical and socioeconomic standpoints. So what about Al Gore’s view on nuclear power prospects — are these also being overrated by its proponents?

Tucker (pg x — xi) has the following to say in response to Gore’s cited testimony:

Saying that nuclear reactors only come in “one size — extra large” is woefully uninformed. Reactors can come in any size. Experimental reactors in laboratories and universities can generate 1 or 2 megawatts (A megawatt — MW — is the standard unit of commercial electricity, able to power about 1,000 homes.) Submarine reactors in the Nuclear Navy generate between 20 and 50 MW, and battleships run on 70 to 100 MW. When Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the Nuclear Navy, “beached” one of his submarine reactors at Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957 to produce the first commercial nuclear plant, it generated 60 MW — about 1/25th the size of today’s.

Utility reactors grew to 300 and 500 MW and beyond, with the largest now reaching 1,500 MW — what Gore calls “extra large”. This is because giant generators are the cheapest way to produce electricity. Coal plants are built to the same size, but this isn’t the only way reactors can be built. The Russians are now powering Siberian villages with 80 MW reactors floated in on barges. China and Japan are building modular reactors of 150 MW to power small communities. There isn’t any reason reactors can’t be built to the neighborhood level, combined with hydrogren production or water desalinization. If we ever colonize the moon, it will probably be with transportable nuclear reactors.

The real problem is public fear of all things nuclear. In truth, nuclear power still terrifies people. It seems unnatural and diabolic, a bastard technology conjured up by guilt-ridden scientists trying to exonerate themselves for inventing the atomic bomb. For many people — even those most concerned about global warming — nuclear remains the embodiment of evil, the symbol of all that is wrong with the modern world.

[Yet]… Nuclear energy is the source of the earth’s natural heat, the incredible furnance that heats the earth’s interior to temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun, spitting out volcanoes and lava flows, floating the planet’s continents like giant barges on its molten core. The source of this energy is nuclear power, the greatest scientific discovery of the twentieth century. While we have always looked to the sun for our energy, the unlocking of nuclear power has left us with an alternative — terrestrial energy. There is nothing sinful or reprehensible about using this energy. In fact, it has come just in time to help us deal with what may be our twin crises — climate change and the increasing scarcity of world oil.

I would agree completely with Tucker — Al is poorly informed on this matter and I can only conclude has failed to grasp the full realities of our energy challenge.

Look at Gore’s Senate testimony again. We have the answer to the problem of long-term storage of waste. They’re called fast spectrum and molten salt reactors, which burn up all of the actinides. We have the answer to the problems of errors by operators. It’s called ‘inherent’ or ‘passive’ safety sytems, which are reliant on the imutable laws of physics. One size, extra large? Nonsense. Reactors now come in all different sizes, and design schematics for the Integral Fast Reactor’s commercial exemplar, the S-PRISM by General Electric Hitachi, are set up in blocks containing multiple standardised, modular loops of 380 MW each (by the way, if you are at all interested in the technical aspects of the IFR, that linked paper by Allen Dubberly is a must read). Standardisation, modularity, additivity, passive safetly, on-site processing of self-protecting fuels — they’re all game-changers for the economics of the nuclear power industry (and a carbon price that puts a real environmental cost on coal would also be useful).

So I’m extremely disappointed to find that a man like Gore, who has taken so much time and effort to listen to scientists on the problem of climate change and has been in the position to receiving the top-level advice and expert briefings for decades, seems to have taken no time to try to understand developments in nuclear power, nor to listen to the world experts at his doorstep in the Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories. Why the bipolarity of effort? I don’t know, but to me, it’s Gore’s own Inconvenient Truth. Yet I’m hopeful that it is also something that can be changed, given that he (and many like him) are surely people who are willing to look at complex problems logically, are able to cast aside deep-seated preconceptions, and are willing to face up to really big, confronting challenges.

Climate Denial Crock

In a recent post, I directed readers to a couple of excellent information websites, which are designed explicitly to answer/rebutt all of the common ‘arguments’ (for want of a better word) that are recycled by climate change pseudo-sceptics. Those two websites, Global Warming Debate and Skeptical Science, along with other excellent anti-denial sites like Deltoid and Greenfyre’s (which deal with the day-to-day lunacy that crops up in the newspapers and blogosphere), serve this ongoing need very well. But they do require one to take the time to read a lot of stuff, and let’s face it, there is such a morass of reading material thrust at us each and every day, that it can be easy to ’switch off’.

As a way of adding diversity to your climate and energy education, I’ve already pointed to some useful multimedia sources for understanding more about fast reactor nuclear power. This post is to alert you to a similar non-textual resource which tackles the recycled pseudo-sceptical arguments head-on. It’s called ‘Climate Denial Crock of the Week‘, produced by Peter Sinclair (aka ‘greenman3610′).

This is an expanding series of ‘documentary’ videos posted on YouTube, underpinned by excellent production values, and narrated with a dash of humour to keep the material interesting. Each weekly ’smashing of the crockery’ lasts about 5 to 10 minutes, so it’s not a huge time committment to follow this, week in, week out. It’s definitely worth the bandwidth — Sinclair manages to pack a whole lot of useful and accurate information into each video. All in all, it’s a really superb resource and I applaud his ongoing effort.

So far, the following 13 episodes have been posted (listed below in so particular order — you can watch them in any sequence) — the blurbs after the title are by the producer:

Solar Schmolar — A favorite hobby horse of Climate Denialists is that there is some kind of invisible, undetectable influence from the sun that is responsible for the unequivocal warming of the last century. Let’s put that crock under a microscope and see where the cracks are.

Ice Area and Volume –Denialists continually try to confuse the issue of northern polar ice caps. Here are the facts from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Party like it’s 1998 – One of the enduring classics of denialism, “Global warming stopped in 1998″, is of course, nonsense. Here’s why.

It’s Cold. So there’s no Climate Change – ”I looked outside, and it was snowing, therefore, there is no climate change.” If that’s what passes for rational thought in your social group, you owe it to yourself to watch this edition of Climate Denial Crock of the Week.

The Scoop on Southern Polar Ice — Don’t back down from the watercooler wars. Climate Denial Crock of the Week shoots down the brainless, Rush Limbaugh factoids of global climate denial. Keep coming back each week for more real science on climate change, and send me your suggestions for climate crocks to crush.

Mars Attacks! – It seems to be agreed among deniers, that there is a warming happening on other planets in the solar system. And not just one or two planets. It is considered climate denier gospel that all the other planets are warming, and that this is proof that some kind of solar activity is warming the whole system. Let’s look at the evidence.

The ‘Temp leads Carbon” Crock –Find out what a straw man argument is, and how the most spectacular cherry pick in the history of scientific argument is just part of a day’s work for the professional deniers.

All Wet on Sea Level Rise – Sea level rise will be one of the most destructive effects of climate change, so naturally, Deniers have something grossly in error to say about it. We’ll look, as always, at the source documents.

The Medieval Warming Crock – The so called Medieval Warming Period is an article of faith among deniers. But what does the “Supreme Court of Science” say?

The Great Petition Fraud — We’ve all heard about the “Petitions” of “Scientists” who disagree with Climate Science. This sordid little episode in the history of climate denial points up once again the fundamental dishonesty of the climate denial industry.

I Love the ’70s!! – Everyone has a favorite decade, and for Climate deniers, that decade has got to be, the 70s. Yes, the decade of disco, kung fu, and watergate Because in the 70’s, Deniers will tell you, All climate scientists believed an ice age was coming. Those crazy climate scientists! Why can’t they make up their minds? But is that really true? Maybe a little historical perspective is in order.

That 1500 Year Thing — Climate Deniers S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery make their living by confusing and obfuscating the science of climate change. Their latest book, “Unstoppable Global Warming every 1500 Years”, is a compendium of vintage as well as cutting edge climate crocks. Let’s find out who they are and how they are bamboozling their audience.

The “Urban Heat Island” Crock — Could the scientists at NASA, the National academy of science, the American Meteorological Society, and every professional scientific organization on the planet really have been so silly as to miss something this obvious?

Enjoy the Channel, and make sure you subscribe to the feed, so that you’ll always remember to get your weekly dose of climate crockery! I’ll also keep this post’s title listing updated as new vids are added.

A cooling story involving ozone, the sun and the sea

A note from the author Erl Happ, who is a Western Australian wine maker from Margaret River.  We can learn a lot about the behaviour of the Sun/ Earth system via an examination of historical temperature data. This little essay illustrates that point. It was first published at the blog I share with Carl Wolk at http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/

All data is presented as a 12 month moving average centered on the seventh month. Data sourced from: Kalnay, E. and Coauthors, 1996: The NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 40-year Project. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437-471. at:

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl

Figure 1 Response of lower stratosphere to ocean warming

When the tropical sea heats up evaporation is enhanced. Convection tends to carry moisture high up into the tropical atmosphere and some overshoots the tropopause into the stratosphere where it encounters ozone.

Ozone is soluble in water. In the commercial manufacture of ozone the air that is to carry the ozone is cooled to minus 80°C so as to dry it out and make it possible for that air to convey the ozone to the point of application, for example the empty wine barrel to be sanitized.

Ozone is a strong absorber of both UVB from the sun (or we would get more sunburn and more cancer) and also long wave radiation from the earth. The ozone molecule swiftly transfers the extra energy gained to the surrounding air and the temperature of that air increases. If however the ozone content of the air diminishes there is less heat imparted to the air and its temperature falls. So air that contains ozone can fall in temperature from two sources. The first is a reduction in radiation. The second is a reduction in ozone content.

Figure 1 demonstrates that increased evaporation in the tropics is accompanied by a fall in the temperature of the air in the lower stratosphere at 70hPa. This fall in the temperature of the air at 70hPa relates directly to the magnitude of the increase in sea surface temperature. The fall in temperature in the stratosphere at 70hPa is due to loss of ozone into water solution.

How far into the stratosphere does this effect extend?

Figure 2. Response of stratosphere to humidification and solar activity

Figure 2 shows that the fall/rise in the temperature of the air at 70hPa also occurs at 50hPa and 30hPa. This shows that the stratosphere is fairly well mixed, and relatively speedily so, despite the more sluggish convection (than in the troposphere) due to the temperature increase with elevation.

If the temperature of the air in the stratosphere falls as the surface warms (due to the evaporation humidifying the stratosphere) we would expect the temperature of the stratosphere to warm as the surface cools. That indeed is what has happened since 1998. I show the increase in stratospheric temperature with arrows. The increase is due to more ozone in the stratosphere as the tropical ocean has gradually cooled.

Now I want to draw the readers attention to what is going on at 10hPa when the surface warms. After 1978 when the sun became very active and tropical sea surface temperature jumped we can trace the episodic fall in temperature all the way from 70hPa to 10hPa. The paradox is that the micro-structure involves cooling during specific El Nino warming events but the macro-structure shows a general increase in 10hPa temperature due to a secular increase in ozone due to the impact of enhanced ionizing radiation on oxygen. If we examine the data closely we see that prior to 1978 a rise in 70 hPa temperature (due to enhanced ozone as the tropical sea surface episodically cools) is accompanied by a fall in 10hPa temperature due to diminished solar activity (less ionizing short wave radiation). This observation links the sun with surface temperature change.

If the macro-structure at 10hPa shows the impact of ionizing radiation on oxygen we can see from the curve that this particular macro warming event that began in 1978 is not yet over. We have some way to go before 10hPa temperature returns to the 1948 level.

Let’s move right along to an examination of temperature change in the atmosphere since 1948.

Figure 3 Temperature change in the lower troposphere

Figure 3 shows that in general the lower levels in the atmosphere have definitely warmed. Whatever the cause of this warming, and the analysis above suggests that it is entirely due to the sun, the atmosphere above 400 hPa is not storing warmth. Its temperature has not increased at all. Below 700hPa temperatures took off in 1978 and have not yet returned to base level. Above 700 hPa temperatures have returned to base level on many occasions, most recently in the year 2000. Why have temperatures below 700hpa not returned to base? I suggest that it is because these levels are too close to the great earthly store of warmth, the ocean.

In passing we note that the largest increase in temperature is not at the surface but at 850hPa (1 km) where water vapour condenses to form cloud. This is not a ‘greenhouse effect’ but is due to release of latent heat of condensation. The tropics tend to be heat saturated so more energy goes straight into evaporation. Water is the Earth’s refrigerant gas and the troposphere is the engine that drives the refrigeration mechanism.

Figure 4 Temperature change in the upper troposphere

Figure 4 shows the pattern of heating in the upper troposphere. Again we note the lack of any long term increase in temperature. At all levels the temperature has returned to base. However, between 200hPa and 100hpa the period of increased solar activity that is evident in 10hPa temperature in figure 2 manifests as a strong and sustained increase in temperature between the onset in 1978 and demise about 2006.

Those who have followed my discussions with Leif Svalgaard will know that he steadfastly maintains that 200hPa temperature simply reflects surface temperature and that the level of ozone in the troposphere below the tropopause (100hPa) is too slight to produce a thermal response to UVB. He is plainly incorrect. The surface is warmer today than in 1948 but 200hPa temperature is back to 1948 levels. Look again I say?

Above 500hPa the temperature of the air is below freezing point and clouds exist as micro crystalline ice with highly absorptive (infrared) and reflective (visible spectrum) properties. In the period of warming between 1978 and 1999 the ratio of ice cloud to droplet cloud changed because, while humidity fell continuously at all levels evaporation in the tropics and convection kept up the moisture supply to the upper troposphere and, as we have seen, the stratosphere. In this regime ice cloud becomes an ever more important constituent of the Earths armoury against solar radiation. When the temperature of the upper troposphere warms ice cloud evaporates and more sunlight gets to the ocean surface. This is the atmospheric dynamic that drives ENSO.

Take home messages:

1. There is a natural cycle that drives the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere. This is shown by the cooling at 70hPa as the tropical sea warms.
2. The influence of the sun is seen in the micro-structure and the macro-structure of temperature at all levels of the atmosphere above the 200hPa pressure level between 20°N and 20°S.
3. The atmosphere does not store warmth. Above 700hPa it has returned to base temperature after each warming episode between 1948 and 2008. It is the sea that stores warmth.
4. The rate of warming at 850hPa (1 km) is a good measure of the increased energy that the Earth receives from the sun over the course of time. It is here that the temperature has increased most since 1978. Temperature at 850hPa will only return to base when the tropical oceans themselves return to base temperature. This return seems to be in process but rest assured that warming and cooling events will continue to provide a secure topic for everyday conversation.
5. Cooling of the stratosphere is not due to greenhouse gas warming of the troposphere. There is no temperature change in the lower troposphere except very close to the warmer ocean. Cooling of the stratosphere is due to ozone loss associated with surface warming.
6. Ozone loss in the stratosphere is a natural consequence of sea surface warming.

Have you comprehended the argument? Here is a test.

Explain why 10hPa and 100hPa temperatures are in sync under high solar activity and out of sync at low solar activity as seen in figure 5 below.

Figure 5 Temperature change at 10hPa and 100hPa

Spot the recycled denial VI – Chris Kenny

In this series, I aim to teach you to recognise the recycled denialism that is rife in the public arena these days.

I don’t refute this nonsense by constructing a new argument each time which, point-by-point, shows why their claims are not supported by the evidence. This is pointless, since the majority of non-greenhouse theorists (’pseudo-sceptics’) blithely ignore any such counterpoints and simply repeat the same arguments elsewhere. Instead I rebut by hyperlinking to some of the wealth of explanatory material out there on the world wide web. For reasons of general accessibility, the articles l link to are predominantly pitched for a lay audience – but they are consistent in linking to the peer-reviewed primary scientific literature (sometimes I’ll link straight to the journal papers). I focus primarily on the science content of the piece, except where non-science arguments are clearly false and demand correction.

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Chris Kenny is a former journalist and senior adviser to state and federal Liberal governments who writes a regular Opinion column for my local News Corp. paper, the Adelaide Advertiser. He also often guest hosts a radio talkback show on FIVEaa and is now a senior reporter on Channel 9’s A Current Affair. Over the past 3 months alone he’s written 3 articles attacking the science behind global warming (sea levels are not rising, CO2 is good, it hasn’t warmed since 1998, etc.). A man on a mission.

In the past, blogger Ian Musgrave has done a good job of debunking Chris’ nonsense in his ‘The Advertiser’s War on Science‘ series. But now it’s time for me to once again take up the ‘Spot the Recycled Denial‘ cudgels to tackle Chris’ New Years Eve 2008 rant, entitled ‘As the planet cools, check the science ‘.

First, here’s a snippet of this Op Ed:

APART from the global financial crisis, the main issue this year has been global warming. Or, rather, the fear of global warming.

Inconveniently for global-warming alarmists, global average temperatures have, for 10 years running, fallen short of those recorded in 1998.

Still, there has been plenty of action. The Federal Government has outlined its planned carbon tax scheme, the U.S. has elected a President promising to tackle carbon emissions and diplomats have agonised unsuccessfully over a truly international scheme.

All this action suggests the remedy is running ahead of the detailed diagnosis. The raw temperature figures allow room for significant scientific interpretation.

The consensus view is that the past decade has still been historically warm and the trend is up, so it’s just a matter of time before the 1998 records are topped. Dissenters say we are seeing the end of a warming phase and we may be entering a cooler period.

We all know the climate changes constantly. The critical question is whether carbon dioxide emissions from human activity are significantly affecting climate patterns.

The full article can be read here…

As per the revised format of this series, rather than reproducing the article in full and hyperlinking the refuted claims, I’ll simply list them below with two or three random relevant links (of the huge number now available to the serious internet investigator!) to the scientific information or direct debunking. It will be up to you to look at the original article and pinpoint these recycled arguments:

1. Global warming stopped in 1998.

[Short response: A recycled argument based on cherry picking a strong El Nino year. Not based on any statistical analysis of the temperature time series, which shows ongoing warming, especially when the ENSO signal is removed. Ignores ocean heat content accumulation, which is the key measure of global warming.]

More information:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/11/23/what-bob-carter-and-andrew-bolt-fail-to-grasp/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11645

2. We may be entering a cooling period.

[Short response: Presumably he means if the sun gets stuck in its current sunspot low. Yet a simple calculation will show that less than 10 years of greenhouse gas forcing offset the difference between the peak and trough of the solar cycle, so this is not possible without widespread and sustained vulcanism - is he predicting this? A bold prognosticator indeed.]

More information:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/14/what-if-the-sun-got-stuck/

http://scholarsandrogues.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/anti-global-heating-claims-a-reasonably-thorough-debunking/#m15

http://www.skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm

3. Climate is always changing.

[Short response: Climate changes because it is forced to -- it doesn't change because it suddenly 'decides to', and it doesn't just flip-flop randomly. It has to be pushed in one direction (warming) or another (cooling) by positive forcing or feedbacks (e.g. brighter sun, addition of greenhouse gases, lower albedo) or negative forcing/feedbacks (e.g. dimmer sun, drawdown of greenhouse gases, increased atmospheric dust, greater ice cover, increased volcanic activity).]

More information:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/debate/climatechange/summary.asp#paleo

4. Australia’s emissions are minuscule compared to other polluting nations, so we shouldn’t take action until they do.

[Short response: Australia's emissions are about 1.5% of the global total, but we ship about about another 2-3% worth of coal. Our per capita emissions are amoung the highest of any country, so our individual responsibility is far greater than the world average -- the average Australian would have to reduce their emission by half just to be equivalent to the average European -- and much further again to get down to an average Chinese or Indian.]

More information:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/12/26/save-a-bit-here-ship-a-whole-lot-there/

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/1/9/172316/4448

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/08/30/australias-soaring-carbon-emissions-put-kyoto-out-of-reach/

5. We ain’t deniers!

[Short response: Yes, you are.]

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/the-popular-media-as-climate-change-deniers/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/how-to-be-a-real-sceptic/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Cartoon-about-global-warming-alarmism.html

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/will-full-ignorance/

6. David Bellamy and Phil Chapman are credible.

[Short response: No, they're not.]

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/david-bellamy-victim-but-of-who/

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/04/the_australians_war_on_science_11.php

7. There’s no proof! Prove it! (from retired CSIRO scientist [a coal geologist] Dr Guy LeBlanc Smith)

[Short response: If you want proof, do pure mathematics. Otherwise, seek hypotheses that are repeatedly consistent with evidence. As cce succinctly says:

"Eventually, after listening to all of this evidence and reasoning, a skeptic will demand that you prove it to them. In order to “prove” that humanity is heating up the atmosphere, we’d have to create an experiment with two or more models. This would involve constructing a new planet, identical in every way to the Earth except with no human influence. Then we’d speed up time so we can observe any differences between the two planets. Obviously, we can’t do that. We are instead running the experiment on our only working model: our home, the earth.

So when skeptics demand proof, first of all they don’t understand the scientific definition of the word, and secondly, they are asking the impossible. No amount of evidence will change their opinion if they require an experiment that is impossible to construct."]

More information:

http://cce.890m.com/attributing-mankind/

http://dx.doi.org/10.1641/B570708

http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm

8. Uncertainties mean we should wait before taking action.

[Short response: Climate scientists are as sure as it is scientifically possible to be [see point 7 above] that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, and that this will result in damaging impacts which will increase in magnitude as emissions continue and temperatures continue to rise. Detailed economic modelling has clearly shown that the cost of inaction greatly outweighs the cost of action, even when impact-related uncertainties are incorporated into these analyses.]

More information:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11658

http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp11.htm#11_2

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/1/24/18548/9954

9. Sceptics and ’sceptical research’ are suppressed.

[Short response: All scientists, in every field, play by a common set of' 'rules'. This involves having their work (scientific papers) scrutinised for quality, reliability and repeatability by a set of independent (usually confidential) experts -- this is known as blind peer review. Nothing is or can be 'suppressed' by some conspiratorial coterie; but only work of reasonable quality and veracity tends to get through the peer review filter and be published in reputable journals. Indeed, as any practicing (actively publishing) scientist will tell you, science does not and cannot work by collusion. The IPCC is a UN review body with scientists nominated by each participating country; it conducts no primary research because its job is to summarise the already peer-reviewed scientific literature.]

More information:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/13/23211/495

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/skeptic-scientist-is-censored-or-not/

10. The supposed consensus among scientists is a sham, 650 scientists have disputed anthropogenic global warming.

[Short response: Climate warming due to human activity is mainstream science involving a huge number of research disciplines; consensus does not mean that every single scientist agrees with man-made climate change, but that the vast majority does agree; this is reflected in the peer-reviewed literature, for which surveys have found >99% of the primary scientific literature explicitly or implicitly endorse this view; former Science editor Donald Kennedy said: "Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science"]

More information:

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/inhofes-mauvais-blague/

http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=15

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-47011101

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To his credit, Chris does say “Finally, we do need to give the planet the benefit of the doubt, so improved energy efficiency and some other measures are indisputably sensible. But at the same time, we must continue the serious research and debate.”

No arguments there about energy efficiency or ongoing serious research, but I wonder what ‘debate’ he is referring to? If it is the multitude of scientific debates about climate feedbacks, sensitivity, tipping elements, relative impacts of climate change on natural systems, etc. then I do agree. But if recycled points such as ‘Is the Earth cooling’ is what he means, then he’s asking to shadowbox with strawmen.

Strangely, Chis also recommends the Gristmill Skeptics website in the links at the end of his article. I wonder if he read it?