An Orwellian Climate

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” (George Orwell) In George Orwell’s novel 1984 the term “Newspeak” conveys changes not only to the language but to the nature of thought itself, where: “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten,... Read article

No Alternative To Atmospheric CO2 Draw-Down: A Geological Perspective

The scale and rate of modern climate change have been underestimated. The release to date of a total of over 500 billion ton (GtC) of carbon through emissions, land clearing and fires,  has raised CO2 levels to 397-400 ppm and near 470 ppm CO2-e [a value including methane] at a rate of ~2 ppm CO2 per year [1] (Figures 1 and 2). These developments are shifting the Earth’s climate toward Pliocene-like (5.2 – 2.6 million years-ago [Ma]; +2-3oC) conditions and possibly mid-Miocene-like (~16 Ma; +4oC) conditions [2], within... Read article

January-October 2010 Emerges as the Warmest Period in the Instrumental Record

According to a new report “State of the Climate – Global Analysis, October 2010” published by National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global the combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January–October 2010 was +0.63°C above the 20th century average of 14.1°C and tied with 1998 as the warmest January–October period on record (see Figure 1). The data indicate mean temperature changes in the Arctic... Read article

The Spate of Floods and Fires around the Globe

Manifestations of runaway climate change… 2010 is shaping up as the warmest in the instrumental record, as recorded by the National Climate Data Centre (NCDC – the worlds largest active archive of weather data), NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), Hadley-Met/Climate Research Unit, Remote Sensing Satellite survey (RSS) and  Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU), and as shown by the plot (Figure 1) below http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html , http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_browse.html According to... Read article

A Planet on the Backburner

The mothballing of Australia’s CPRS ( http://www.theage.com.au/business/rudd-delays-carbon-scheme-until-2012-20100427-tp29.html ), a scheme at best symbolic in nature, heralds the success of the massive anti-climate science disinformation campaign waged on the pages of the conservative media. Other sections of the media, including the ABC, maintain a “balance”. Where 2+2=4, and if the party in George Orwell’s 1984 decrees “2+2=5″, the media’s “balanced” approach suggests “2+2=4.5″ Day-in... Read article

As sea level rises so does the level of climate change denial

“We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet.”  (Joachim Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Climate Impacts Institute, advisor to the German government). The release of more than 320 billion tons of carbon (GtC) from buried early biospheres, adding more than one half of the original carbon inventory of the atmosphere (~590 GtC) to the atmosphere-ocean system, has triggered a fundamental shift in the state of the atmosphere at a rate of 2 ppm CO2/year, a pace unprecedented in the geological... Read article

The Lungs of the Earth

The recent warning by Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact: “We are simply talking about the very life support system of this planet” [1] is consistent with the lessons arising from the history of the Earth’s atmosphere/ocean system. A rise of CO2-e (CO2-equivalent, including the effect of methane) above 500 ppm and of mean global temperature toward and above 4 degrees C, projected by the IPCC [2], Copenhagen [3] and Oxford [4] scientific reports, as well as reports... Read article

Planetary Boundaries

The CO2 <350 PPM Upper Limit of Human Habitats… THE RISE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 ABOVE 350 PPM AT THE CURRENT RATE OF 2 PPM/YEAR IS TRANSCENDING ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS WHICH ALLOWED THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION AND, WITH LAG EFFECTS, IS LEADING TOWARD AN ICE-FREE EARTH AND A MASS EXTINCTION OF SPECIES Climate change is tracking toward levels which transcend the planetary boundaries which allowed the development of humans over the last 3 million years [1]. These limits have already been crossed in terms of... Read article

21st Century Climate Blueprints

Perspective from the recent History of the Atmosphere… The Earth surface temperature reflects the net balance between incoming solar (shortwave) radiation and outgoing terrestrial (long wave) radiation (Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997 [1]).  The severe disturbance of the energy balance of the atmosphere ensuing from the emission of over 320 billion tons of carbon since 1750 threatens a shift in the state of the atmosphere/ocean system to ice free greenhouse Earth conditions.  Based on the recent Copenhagen Synthesis Report... Read article

Noah’s Arc Revisited

AN ALLIANCE OF PRO-CARBON SCEPTICS AND FUNDAMENTALISTS IS RETARDING 11TH HOUR ATTEMPTS AT MITIGATION OF DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE Andrew Glikson Earth and paleoclimate scientist Australian National University ABSTRACT Mammals have only been able to attain large dimensions on land once atmospheric CO2 concentrations declined toward c. 500 ppm during the Eocene (56-34 million years ago) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal), with related cooling of c.5 degrees C, formation of the Antarctic ice sheet and decline of sea levels... Read article

The Road To Two Degrees Celsius

THE ROAD TO THE EU’S +2 DEGREES C MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE LIMIT (Figures and table in the attached pdf file) According to the IPCC AR4-2007 report [1] a total anthropogenic greenhouse factor, equivalent to +2.3 degrees C, is masked by a compensating aerosol albedo effect (mainly sulphur from industrial emissions) equivalent to -0.9C (without land clearing albedo gain and ice melt albedo loss) (Table 1).  Once the short-lived aerosols dissipate, adding the reflectance loss of melting polar ice (where maximum warming of... Read article

Key Climate Science Problems In Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth’

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts” (Senator Daniel Moynihan) Bold claims as if the science is “missing” from the extensive research conducted by the world’s premier research bodies (Hadley-Met, NASA, Potsdam-Oceanographic, CSIRO, Tindall, national academies of science), reported in thousands of peer-reviewed science journal papers and complied by International and government panels (IPCC, Stern, Garnaut) [2], which amount to attempts at reinvention of the... Read article

Climate Myths?

Responses by Andrew Glikson to Andrew Bolt’s article “10 climate myths” (Herald Sun 29-4-09) (http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090429-Climate-myths-Glickson-v-Bolt.html) Andrew Bolt today presented 10 climate change “myths”. (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_the_10_warming_myths/?source=cmailer). Here is my response to each. Essentially, the “skeptics” are searching for short annual or biannual changes, rather than looking at decade-scale... Read article

Toward Climate Geoengineering

Preamble That global climate change has reached an impasse whereby the “powers-to-be” are entertaining climate geoengineering mitigation, instead of the urgent deep reduction of carbon emissions required by science, represents the ultimate moral bankruptcy of institutions and a failure of democracy. With global atmospheric CO2 levels rising at about 2 ppm/year toward 388 ppm, or near-440 ppm CO2-e (including methane effects)  (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/), John Holdren, in his first interview... Read article

The War Against Science While Rome is Burning

The state of the terrestrial atmosphere over the last ~10,000 years (Holocene), when conditions became amenable for agriculture and civilization, and over the preceding ~5 million years (Pliocene-Pleistocene) when prehistoric humans evolved, was constrained by a CO2 range of 180 to 300 ppm (https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/ home/droyer/web/Target_CO2_(Hansen_et_al).pdf), developed some 34 million years ago (end-Eocene) when atmospheric CO2 levels declined below 500 ppm (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446 /n7135/pdf/nature05699.pdf;... Read article