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Boswell - visiting Area 51?

Tuesday, 29 September 2009 08:24 | Written by joni

It seems pretty clear that the coalition has some serious challenges ahead in determining their position on the ETS. Senator Boswell (National, Qld) said yesterday:

"Despite that I don't believe we took an ETS to the last election. That would strip and take away the advantages of primary industry and the advantages of mining and render regional Australia into a disaster areas. I don't even recall it going through the party room to be truthful."

Turnbull replied that "I can assure the Senator [Boswell] that we did take that policy to the last election and it was clearly enunciated as an emissions trading scheme that would be introduced perhaps in 2011 but most likely 2012".

Climate Change III - CO2E

Sunday, 20 September 2009 09:32 | Written by joni

Most scientists in climate research believe that we need to reduce CO2E to below 350ppm (parts per million). Why?

CO2E (carbon dioxide and it's equivalents) refers to carbon dioxide and other gases which are being added to the atmosphere. The term is now being used to indicate that carbon dioxide is not the only gas that is contributing to AGW.

The reason that carbon dioxide (and the other gases) are called greenhouse gases is because they work in exactly the same way that a greenhouse works. A greenhouse works by trapping heat - that is, the amount of heat that is radiated is less than the amount of heat absorbed. The CO2E gases work in the same way - more heat is being absorbed and stored. And that is the basis for why the globe is warming. The radiation from the sun is a shorter wavelength than the radiation that bounced back to space - and the CO2E gases absorb the longer wavelength radiation.

Climate Models II

Sunday, 06 September 2009 14:13 | Written by Administrator

Last week I posted on how the models used to model climate change were constructed (that is, the grids and some of the science). This week we cover some of the different type of components that have been incorporated into the models.

In the 1970's and 1980's the only components of models were the atmosphere and land surface. During the early 90's the ocean and sea-ice components were included. The late 90's saw the components that modelled in the influence of aerosols (both sulphate and non-sulphate) included. The most important (I think) component is that of the carbon cycle - which covers both land and ocean cycles. One important point to note here is that the carbon cycle does not just involve C02 (Carbon Dioxide), but it includes other greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons and per-fluorocarbons - gases which change the heat absorption properties of the atmosphere.

Arctic Warming Fielding Day

Friday, 04 September 2009 11:24 | Written by joni

The Australian really needs to talk to Senator Feilding - who assures us that the earth is not warming due to greenhouse gases.

Increased greenhouse gas emissions appear to have overridden the natural cooling caused by a wobble in the Earth's axis which has been gradually pulling the planet away from the Sun.

This wobble has cooled summer temperatures by an average of about 0.2C per thousand years, the study published in the journal Science found.

Climate Models I

Monday, 31 August 2009 15:59 | Written by joni

This post is composed of information from a talk at the Powerhouse Museum by Prof Matthew England (co-Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW) and from the powerpoint presentation he kindly sent to me. There will be a number of posts in this series.

What is a model?

It is a representation of reality. There are three basic types: Iconic (scaled down version), Analogue (different physical, but replicates the behaviour) and Mathematical (analytical relationships based on the physical laws of nature). It is important to note that the physical laws that are used are those that have been around for hundreds of years - they are not new.

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