Is Climate change to blame for Larry’s force
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald is saying Climate change not to blame for Larry’s force
TROPICAL cyclones will become more intense as the planet heats up, although the ferocity of individual storms such as Cyclone Larry cannot be blamed on global warming, say Australian scientists.
The scientific consensus, however, was that global warming was expected to increase cyclone intensity, on average, in future because hotter surface waters would feed more energy into the weather systems
So it isn’t, but it could be. There is so much FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) from both sides of the ‘climate change’ camp, much of it self-contradictory, and much of it just plain lies.
Technorati Tags: climate change, CO2, cyclone, eco, emissions reduction, environment, extinction, glaciers, global warming, hurricane, hype, James Lovelock, meltdown, modelling, Gaia Theory, simulation
Among the more consistent voices is pioneering scientist James Lovelock whose Gail theory, that the Earth behaves in such a way as to sustain the life upon it, and that the life upon it is an integral part of that whole, was initially dismissed as folly.
According to the Gaia Theory there can be no distinction between the geo-sphere and the bio-sphere because we are co-evolved. Take as an example the discovery that were it not for algae’s ability to take in carbon dioxide and give out a chemical called dymethyl sulphide, clouds would not form at all. Clouds, in turn, reflect more heat because they are white. So algae directly affect the world’s climate. Watch any David Attinborough nature docco and you’ll marvel at how most of what we think of as geology, is actually the work of bacteria. Or how elephants, acacia trees and grass all use each other to feed, reproduce and control their populations.
Lovelock’s insight was that the whole world behaves as a living system and this idea was ridiculed in the 70s, when first proposed, as preposterous and unscientific. But over the years it has become the accepted wisdom, and in 2001 the called Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change declared:
Research carried out over the past decade under the auspices of the four programmes to address these concerns has shown that:
The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components. The interactions and feedbacks between the component parts are complex and exhibit multi-scale temporal and spatial variability. The understanding of the natural dynamics of the Earth System has advanced greatly in recent years and provides a sound basis for evaluating the effects and consequences of human-driven change.
Human activities are significantly influencing Earth’s environment in many ways in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Anthropogenic changes to Earth’s land surface, oceans, coasts and atmosphere and to biological diversity, the water cycle and biogeochemical cycles are clearly identifiable beyond natural variability. They are equal to some of the great forces of nature in their extent and impact. Many are accelerating. Global change is real and is happening now.
Global change cannot be understood in terms of a simple cause-effect paradigm. Human-driven changes cause multiple effects that cascade through the Earth System in complex ways. These effects interact with each other and with local- and regional-scale changes in multidimensional patterns that are difficult to understand and even more difficult to predict. Surprises abound.
Earth System dynamics are characterised by critical thresholds and abrupt changes. Human activities could inadvertently trigger such changes with severe consequences for Earth’s environment and inhabitants. The Earth System has operated in different states over the last half million years, with abrupt transitions (a decade or less) sometimes occurring between them. Human activities have the potential to switch the Earth System to alternative modes of operation that may prove irreversible and less hospitable to humans and other life. The probability of a human-driven abrupt change in Earth’s environment has yet to be quantified but is not negligible.
In terms of some key environmental parameters, the Earth System has moved well outside the range of the natural variability exhibited over the last half million years at least. The nature of changes now occurring simultaneously in the Earth System, their magnitudes and rates of change are unprecedented. The Earth is currently operating in a no-analogue state.
So it’s impossible to say that global warming didn’t cause Cyclone Larry. Global warming is affecting the climate. It’s making the climate change. Hence the term ‘climate change’. The planet is heating up. It’s not global warming, that’s too mild. It’s global heating, and it’s measurable and its us doing it. Even the US Government’s own Environmental Protection Agency states that:
Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to accelerate the rate of climate change. Scientists expect that the average global surface temperature could rise 1-4.5°F (0.6-2.5°C) in the next fifty years, and 2.2-10°F (1.4-5.8°C) in the next century, with significant regional variation. Evaporation will increase as the climate warms, which will increase average global precipitation. Soil moisture is likely to decline in many regions, and intense rainstorms are likely to become more frequent.
To say there may be ‘other factors at work’ is just stalling for time and profit. It’s naked greed masquerading as science and it imperils us all. For every legitimate climate scientist there is an industry lackey generating “dialogue’ or ‘debate’ or, more and more these days, openly pushing an industry agenda. Side by side with the Sydney Morning herald’s ridiculous headline, the World Meteorological Organization is saying that they do see a link between global warming and hurricanes.
More than anything, common sense tells us that we need to act now to slow, and indeed reverse the heating of the Earth. And we need to do it fast. The risks of doing nothing are simply too great. The sad truth is that the SMH article above could have been headlined “Climate change increases risk of more Larrys” without having to change a line of the article. What will our children say about us and our failure to preseve the planet is a manner compatible with human survival. If Lovelock is right, and so far his ‘preposterous’ theory has made many successful predictions, we’ve stumbled right into a war between us and our living planet. A war on Terra even. And we need to make a co-ordinated, Dunkirk-style, heroic retreat before the Earth gets rid of us once and for all.
Many scientists including those sympathetic to Gaia theory find it difficult to understand how a system can be self-regulating when it is in positive feedback with respect to the current climate. Thus, greater warmth seems to lead to less clouds and more carbon dioxide, quite the opposite of what would be needed for self-regulation.
This paradox comes I think from our anthropocentricity; we like to think that now is normal and the ice ages abnormal. But if instead we look on the present interglacial as like a fever and the glacial state as normal, then positive feedback enables the system to return rapidly to its goal of a cooler state. It is unlikely that the full details of the cloud algae connection will be revealed for some years, yet who would deny its potential now that greenhouse warming has become a major issue?
Lovelock showed that the earth does not need to be endowed with any sort of special intelligence in order to display such self regulating behaviours by constructing a very simple computer simulation he called ‘Daisy World‘. You can play with a Java version yourself. The Gaia theory is not a mystical new-age fantasy. It’s a scientific theory that makes testable predictions. And so far, as the world’s temperature has been rising dramatically in the last few years, and the ice caps have started to disintegrate, his theory is about the best one we have.
The warnings are coming in loud and clear. We need to act fast to reduce CO2 emissions on one hand, and to regenerate the wilderness that the earth needs to keep its temperature in check on the other. The human population and economy may suffer a little, but that’s nothing like what will happen if the earth truly develops a run-away fever and dies.
We may not need to travel far to know what it’s like to try to live on Mars. - DS
“The Revenge of Gaia - Why the earth is Fighting Back and how we can still save humanity” is James Lovelock’s latest, and most controversial book.
