Final proof we are wasting our money on climate research rather than educating the public

Although I have always been suspicious of the IOD-based explanations for the drying of southern Australia, it is refreshing if despairing to see from Ian Smith an
utter refutation of the arguments for these IOD-based explanations – and for simple, known proof global warming is the culprit and that within a decade or so Melbourne and Hobart will be in the same climate zone historically occupied by Coober Pedy, Birdsville and Tibooburra.

The slowness of the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology at coming up with answer to such serious problems as rainfall declines in southern Australia and increases in northwestern and central-western regions of the continent I am now convinced could have been avoided easily with available statistics from pre-Quaternary paleoclimate data and from known atmospheric circulation changes that show a major poleward shift in both hemispheres (ruling out the hyped “Asian Haze” explanation) of the tropical Hadley circulation since the 1970s.

If the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology had done the sensible thing and been willing to accept this cause of rainfall changes over the continent, they could have persuaded ordinary Australians and foreign governments that Australia is a rogue state not only with the highest per capita greenhouse emissions in the world, but with per capita emissions that are anything more than not at least an order of magnitude lower than those of any other country. Australia’s water resources have such sensitivity that acceptable per capita emissions would probably be two orders of magnitude lower than those from Europe, Asia, New Zealand or North America.

Had the Australian public and foreign governments taken in all the information known even in 1996 about paleoclimatology, Australian ecology and changes in rainfall over the western half of the continent, the greenhouse mafia would have been under immense pressure rather than ruling as if they were regarded as having the “Mandate of Heaven” as outer suburbanites with their cheap housing and car-dependent lifestyle give them. Ideally, we would have seen rallies and public pressure force the greenhouse mafia out and a rigid policy whereby every cent of transport and energy planning was devoted to railway building or freeway demolition developed – along with efforts to greatly improve Australia’s network of conservation reserves that would make housing or energy (or both) less cheap to provide more incentive for innovation in the place that ecologically needs it most.

Are the scientists going off-line again?

The last month has seen a spate of articles linking the decline in rainfall over southern Australia to a succession of positive Indian Ocean Dipole events and an absence of negative ones since 1994.

People now are saying that the IOD is the principle cause of rainfall variations over Australia, yet even apart from the increases over central-western Australia that I have tried desperately hard since 2001 to draw towards the CSIRO’s attention.

However, I recently discovered a map that casts a lot of doubt as to IOD-based explanations for the drying of southern Australia. One might think that the absence of wet negative IOD events between 1880 and 1905 when Melbourne gathered thirty percent more rain than since 1997 is due to poor data. However, when I e-mailed the publisher of this data, Bob Beale of the University of New South Wales, he said that there really were no negative Indian Ocean Dipole events between 1880 and 1905. That contradicts the statement in the article “...the longest period of its kind since records began in the late 19th Century.”

What irritates me no end is the failure of people at the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology to take the following statement about rainfall increases in central-western Australia that came to me from an e-mail by Ian Smith:

“My thinking at the moment is that the increase represents a response to the Australian continent as a whole, warming up faster than the oceans over recent time. This would increase the land-ocean temperature gradient and drive a stronger monsoon-like circulation. We have some climate model experiments, which tend to support this hypothesis.”

This may not necessarily seem to relate to the decline in rainfall over southern Australia. However, what I think – and observe from real synoptic charts – is that the “stronger monsoon-like circulation” increases the northerly component of airflow over southeastern Australia. This produces dry winds from the interior, especially in areas like southern Victoria shielded by the Great Divide, and a consequent reduction in rainfall. Why others at the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology fail to take this idea serious I do not know, but suspect highly political motives are involved.

A list that has most of what it takes

Today I discovered a list of the All Time Greatest Albums from a radio station in Virginia. Although I know the list reflects what the person grew up with much more than I have come to see as in any way needed, I still enjoyed reading the list enough that I will list all the albums included:

- Material Issue: International Pop Overthrow
- Possum Dixon: Possum Dixon
- Replacements: Tim
- Pooh Sticks: Million Seller
- Pooh Sticks: The Great White Wonder
- The Clash: London Calling
- Big Star #1 Record
- Big Star Radio City
- Matthew Sweet: Girlfriend
- Counting Crows: August and Everything After
- Def Leppard: Hysteria
- Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True
- Guided By Voices - Alien Lanes
- Feel: Feel
- Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience
- Hüsker Dü: Candy Apple Grey
- Sugar: Copper Blue
- Sugar: File Under: Easy Listening
- INXS: Kick
- Joe Jackson: Look Sharp!
- Joe Jackson: I’m The Man
- Ramones: Mania
- Jane’s Addiction: Nothing’s Shocking
- Jane's Addiction: Ritual de lo Habitual
- Van Halen: Van Halen
- Primus: Sailing The Seas of Cheese
- Primus: Frizzle Fry
- Alice In Chains: Dirt
- Pearl Jam: Ten
- Soundgarden: Badmotorfinger
- Nirvana: Bleach
- Nirvana: Nevermind
- Nirvana: In Utero
- King Missile: The Way To Salvation
- Bob Marley & The Wailers: Legend
- Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom: …And You?
- Metallica: Metallica
- Beastie Boys: Ill Communication
- Fugazi: Repeater
- Ned’s Atomic Dustbin: God Fodder
- Offspring: Smash
- Offspring: Ignition
- Green Day: Dookie
- Green Day: Kerplunk!
- Green Day: 39 Smooth
- Jesus and Mary Chain: Automatic
- Buffalo Tom: Let Me Come Over
- Operation Ivy: Operation Ivy
- Rancid: …And Out Come The Wolves
- Cure: Standing On The Beach - The Singles
- Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
- Social Distortion: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
- Semisonic: Great Divide
- Paul Westerberg: Eventually
- Frogpond: Count To Ten
- R.E.M.: Out Of Time
- Tom Petty: Damn The Torpedoes
- Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever
- Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels
- Ani DiFranco: Not A Pretty Girl
- Morphine: Cure For Pain
- U2: Achtung Baby
- Ween: Pure Guava
- White Stripes: White Blood Cells
- The Pretenders: The Singles
- XTC: Nonesuch
- The Wood Brothers: Loaded
- The Wood Brothers: Ways Not To Lose

Those who know me intimately might realise I used to listen to INXS as a child they were unavoidable on radio in Australia anyway) but nowadays tend to accept the criticisms of people like Joe S. Harrington. Despite the fact that I really, utterly hate the Offspring and Nirvana, I do not mind the way in which the writer here comments about his musical history: after all, that was one of the factors that solidified Joe S. Harrington and David Keenan in my memory.

There are some obscure albums on ths list, notably one by a female duo called Frogpond.

A discovery that a joke was wrong and my thought not so certain

For years, I had assumed that the leader of Socialist Alternative, Sandra Bloodworth, was legally blind and that she obtained her money from the pension for this disablement. My brother's response to this was to call her "blind to the truth" in her pursuit of the Trotskyist aim of worldwide socialist revolution.

Yet, on my accosting journey this last Monday, I discovered a man who actually knew Sandra Bloodworth quite well. What he said was that he had confirmation she was not legally blind at all.

So, we see that one joke of my brother's that I have had fun with for years was totally unfounded! How on earth an organisation with only fifty members could have two "Sandras" I do not know. Also, it makes my point that those on the Left are much less sensitive and compassionate than conservatives a little less certain.

A pity I could take no picture!

Today, I spent most of the day travelling around on buses in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, mainly looking for secondhand bookshops. I did not find anything I had not known of before, but I unfortunately was accosting more people than I ever had done before owing to my feelings about the ongoing global warming disaster affecting Victoria. Many of the people actually liked me and quite a number enjoyed talking to me – often I took great pains to ask people I was accosting whether or not I was actually offending or hurting them. The subject of all accostings was the same: petrol prices. Given that most of the people were from ultra-car-dependent outer suburbs, it was not surprising that they disagreed that petrol was too cheap.

However, they were generally very willing to listen to my point that the fifty or more percent loss of rainfall in thirteen short years was a good point in favour of radically higher petrol prices.

One exception occurred at Ringwood Station where a man angrily said that if my argument for $50-per-litre petrol was acceptable said that I should imagine $50 daily public transport fares. He then told me to watch The Great Global Warming Swindle. I decided not to rebut his argument as I felt I might be hurt or would lose in an aggressive debate. Another person at Ringwood East station got very upset when I pointed out how we would have twice the rainfall we have now if every single cent spent on CityLink had been devoted to railways or road demolition. On this occasion, though I apologised extremely willingly and the man accepted.

Still, when I finally came home my mother was upset to be told I had accosted people about petrol prices. She also said that people in the outer suburbs were likely to be kind and hide the fact that they did not like me accosting them – something I am willing to accept with few if any grudges.

A more interesting highlight of my visit was looking at the doomed forests of the Dandenong Ranges on my trip to Belgrave. Every moment I was moving between Upper Ferntree Gully and Belgrave I just knew it would be my last chance to photo these wonderful forests, which still looked pretty good although doomed.

Every time I heard the radio today there was news of catastrophic fire danger and 40˚C temperatures. All that was unaccompanied by needed calls to fight for a rigid zero emissions target (that Australia should have reached before now without the slightest overseas emissions reduction) or even pointing out in the most sensible manner that the coal and car industries have caused these dangerous bushfire scenarios and should pay for them.

What we will sadly see tomorrow is more than just bushfires. It is the destruction and extinction of an entire ecosystem. Evidence from international climate models clearly shows that southeastern Australia is likely to experience far larger declines in rainfall that the 40 percent decline observed since 1997 (see here). With declines in rainfall of over 80 percent, there would be nowhere for the mountain ash forests to go and even the drier forests would not survive. Instead, what we will see is a barren sandy desert that is already creeping up on Melbourne’s suburbs as it is. They way I imagine it, even on the exceedingly rare occasions it does rain significantly (say, over 10 millimetres once every decade) there is not likely to be much vegetation growth, especially if annual seedlings are burnt out be the very high temperatures likely to be experienced every summer from now on.

The real pity that I regret is that I could not be the last one to take a picture of the mountain ash forest before the fire burns it to the ground to be replaced by a desert as dry as the Sahara. In an age where rain in Melbourne is as rare as a unicorn, a souvenir of how southern Victoria looked before Robin Underwood, Jeff Kennett and the coal and electricity companies turned it into desert would no doubt be a valuable rarity that I sadly will never have the luxury of possessing.