From                                           Subject
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001 Lindsay [writer at lisp.com.au]                   Global Warming interview
002 steve baynham [bayns at broad.net.au]             forecast loop
003 paulmoss at tpgi.com.au                           forecast loop
004 Jimmy Deguara [jdeguara at ihug.com.au]           Another article -  9th March wall cloud event

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001
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 00:05:16 -0800
From: Lindsay [writer at lisp.com.au]
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Subject: Re: aus-wx: Global Warming interview
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G'day All,

Thanks Blair and Michael for your thoughts on Global warming and the
interview etc.
There is plenty of good things in your reponses that I will spend more
time reflecting on. Michael? What address can I have to send you the
tape, if you still want to listen to it, that is? I have notes on it, so
you can have it, if you like.

Blair, Glover did say David Whetton a number of times but he can
mis-pronounce names awfully at times, so maybe it was Peter Whetton.
Maybe O'Brien is well known as a greenhouse skeptic (And he did sound
antagonistic during the interview, at least to me, anyway) but I'd be
interested in knowing more of his skepticism, if for no other reason
than to add to my slowly deepening pool of knowledge on the warming
subject etc. In the field I sometimes write for (psychology) skeptics
(so called) can be a valuable counter to other arguments put forth. What
I'm saying is, could O'Brien have some valuable input into the warming
debate? Perhaps a better forum other than a radio interview, would help
this? He did say, that the 0.7 degrees of warming seemed a pretty
reliable observation, after all.

And Michael, what you said about not arguing so much about whether c02
levels are human induced or not but looking at what we can do about it
has validity in my mind too.  I liked your thoughts.

One other question. Is it possible for there to be a longer term
downward trend in the decadal timescale (ie: a medium to strong cooling
trend), to counter warming with our current co2 levels whether warming
is human induced or not? That is, can a prolonged cooling period still
happen or is that unlikely now?

On a light hearted note, I am well aware that part of me wishes O'Brien
was completely 
right as I like cold weather and snow . I just hope we can have
some more "Noise on a decadal time scale" that is somewhat cooler than
the trends suggest, at least for this year (and decade?), anyway.


Lindsay Pearce
PS: I was recently reading a piece from Alan Wilkie in the early 70's (I
have this in a book at home) on the general view of scientists of that
day of a general cooling trend taking place that could lead to much more
cooling. It was quite funny considering it was only 25 or so years ago.


Blair Trewin wrote:
> 
> >
> > Did anyone else here the interview on 2BL on Wednesday arvo?
> >
> > Richard Glover interviewed Dr David Wheaton from the CSIRO and Dr Brian
> > O'Brien, former prof. of Space Science at Rice (sp?) University in
> > Houston and now a strategic and environmental consultant living in Perth
> > (Well, he was on the phone from there anyway)
> >
> >
> > Wheaton said the usual CSIRO stuff about 40-90% less snow cover by 2070
> > in the Australian Alps, a 1 to 3.5 degree warming by 2070 etc.
> >
> > O'Brien said that the models weren't good enough, yet, to work out a net
> > balance of global warming for the future. He said that the IPCC
> > (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?) lists 42 possible scenarios
> > for future Co2 levels varying from less Co2 to 3 to 4 times more! He
> > also challenged the changing views (since their '88 model predictions of
> > 20 to 140cm) of the CSIRO'S sea level predictions which are now at the
> > plus 5 to 30cm rate for the future.
> 
> Might be Peter Whetton? (who is a CSIRO authority on such matters).
> Brian O'Brien is a well-known greenhouse sceptic (which is presumably
> why he was invited on). If I recall correctly he's a geologist by
> background, which means he has a somewhat different perspective in
> terms of what has happened in the (long-distant) past.
> 
> The sea-level predictions have been scaled back in recent years as
> knowledge of sea-ice behaviour has improved.
> 
> I also would have thought that looking at the likely consequences of
> different CO2 levels was the IPCC's job, and that testing multiple
> scenarios doesn't mean all are equally likely. We don't know what the
> exact CO2 level will be in 2050 or 2100, not least because we don't
> know the level of emissions over that time (what happens, for example,
> when oil is no longer the main fuel used in transport, as is likely
> to be the case by 2100?), but we do know that the level of CO2 has
> increased remarkably steadily over the period of instrumental
> observations (there is a small seasonal cycle, but virtually no other
> noise in the time series) and that it will continue to increase
> steadily unless changes are made to the level and trend of emissions.
> 
> (Using modellers' testing of multiple scenarios to imply that they
> don't know what they're talking about is a time-honoured tactic of
> greenhouse sceptics. Scientists will see straight through this, but
> the average person in the street won't, and this is often as much
> about public relations as it is about science).
> 
> > Whilst not denying there has obviously been a warming of around 0.7 of a
> > degree over recent decades he also said that there had been at least 20
> > events in the last 200,000 years where the warming was at least ten
> > times as fast as current warming. "Nature is not static but dynamic" was
> > something he emphasised when relying on models etc.
> 
> 20 events? That surprises me, although I am certainly aware that there
> have been events when the transition from full ice-age conditions
> to something akin to current conditions (which means a warming in the
> order of 6 degrees) has occurred very rapidly (in a matter of
> decades, and perhaps faster). Still, just because it's happened before
> doesn't seem to me to make it desirable that it happen again if it
> can be avoided. (Also worth noting that all of the changes he mentions
> are shifts between an Ice Age state and a present-day state - a sudden
> (in geological terms) jump into a substantially warm state would take
> us into territory unexplored for many tens of thousands of years).
> 
> > He also said we are coming out of a cooler period (The Little Ice Age)
> > and that our temps were quite similar to that of Europe pre The Little
> > Ice Age.
> 
> True - but only partly relevant. I don't think anyone would argue
> that the observed warming so far in the order of tenths of a degree
> has had catastrophic consequences. What people are worried about is
> what happens if there is a further warming of a number of degrees.
> 
> > Anyway, just a little excerpt from the interview, I taped it.
> >
> >
> > I've sometimes wondered myself if the Little Ice Age was influenced by
> > the apparent volcanic activity preceding it. Also re the current
> > warming, what about the urban heat island effect as urbanisation
> > increases and the lack of marine observing stations too? Don't they have
> > some effect on the accuracy of global warming observations? I've read
> > that if you take such things into account, warming since the 1970's is
> > around 0.3 to 0.6 which is comparable to the warming that took place
> > from 1900 to 1940 (+0.5 apparently) before a slight cooling commenced
> > again until the early 70's.
> 
> These figures are about right. The data used for such studies are
> carefully screened for urbanisation (or other inhomogeneities). It's
> interesting to note in this context that the strongest warming signal
> anywhere in the world over the last 40 years is on and near the
> Antarctic Peninsula - not exactly an urbanised region! (We see
> something vaguely similar in Australia, with the weakest warming trend
> in the south-east and the strongest in the north). There are many
> things that can affect a temperature record other than urbanisation;
> many raw Australian temperature time series actually show a downward
> trend if not adjusted, because of the influence of one or both of
> (a) the change from various non-standard shelters to the Stevenson
> Screen between about 1890 and 1910 and (b) the number of sites that
> have moved from town centre sites to airports or similar during the
> course of the record.
> 
> The cooling from 1940 to 1970 is quite interesting. It's largely a
> Northern Hemisphere phenomenon. I don't actually read anything
> deeper into it than noise on the decadal timescale superimposed on
> a general warming trend (with the 1920-40 period being somewhat
> warmer than the trend would suggest, and the 1940-70 period cooler).
> For this reason I'd be wary of extrapolating a trend from, say, 1970
> to the present into the future (because it is coming off an abnormally
> low base), but would be more comfortable looking at a longer-term
> trend. Conversely, a record starting after the late 1970's jump in
> global temperature (such as the satellite data much beloved of
> greenhouse sceptics, which starts in 1979) is likely to show a far
> weaker warming trend than a longer time series will.
> 
> Blair Trewin
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>  -----------------------jacob at iinet.net.au------------------------------

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002
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Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 20:34:24 +1000
To: aussie-weather at world.std.com
From: steve baynham [bayns at broad.net.au]
Subject: aus-wx: forecast loop
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hey everyone!
this is this morning 18z run of avn models starting from 4 pm sunday to 4pm tuesday
http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/gany/images/loop.gif

1.2 meg, sorry bout the size, but there are 9 models at 12hr intervals.
cyas

steveee

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003
From: paulmoss at tpgi.com.au
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Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 21:06:30 +0930
Subject: Re: aus-wx: forecast loop
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Humm the loop is nothing but depressing for us 
Northerners.................... seems the monsoon has gone a vacation.

However there is a possibility of a pulse early April - and maybe a 
TC? ................. heres hoping.

Other then that - plenty of storms about lately - mosylt inland 
pulsies with some great lightning shows.

PS - thanx to all for my Birthday messages.......

Paul.
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004
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Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 23:58:24 +1000
To: aussie-weather at world.std.com
From: Jimmy Deguara [jdeguara at ihug.com.au]
Subject: aus-wx: Another article -  9th March wall cloud event
Sender: aussie-weather-approval at world.std.com
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Hi,

The report on the 9th March 2000 wall cloud Cross the road chase is as follows

www.australiansevereweather.simplenet.com/storm_news/2000/docs/0003-01.htm

For this particular report I have used Matt Smith's idea of including some 
model data to particularly to indicate the wind shear environment.

Enjoy

Jimmy Deguara

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