Why is 2016 smashing heat records?

The Guardian - Karl Mathiesen

January and February have both broken temperature records. Karl Mathiesen examines how much is down to El Niño versus manmade climate change

The Arctic experienced terrific warmth throughout the winter, with temperatures at the north pole approaching 0C in late December – 30C to 35C above average. Photograph: AP

Yet another global heat record has been beaten. It appears January 2016 - the most abnormally hot month in history, according to Nasa - will be comprehensively trounced once official figures come in for February.
Initial satellite measurements, compiled by Eric Holthaus at Slate, put February’s anomaly from the pre-industrial average between 1.15C and 1.4C. The UN Paris climate agreement struck in December seeks to limit warming to 1.5C if possible.
“Even the lower part of that range is extraordinary,” said Will Steffen, an emeritus professor of climate science at Australian National University and a councillor at Australia’s Climate Council.
It appears that on Wednesday, the northern hemisphere even slipped above the milestone 2C average for the first time in recorded history. This is the arbitrary limit above which scientists believe global temperature rise will be “dangerous”.
The Arctic in particular experienced terrific warmth throughout the winter. Temperatures at the north pole approached 0C in late December – 30C to 35C above average.
Mark Serreze, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre, described the conditions as “absurd”.
“The heat has been unrelenting over the entire season,” he said. “I’ve been studying Arctic climate for 35 years and have never seen anything like this before”.
All this weirdness follows the record-smashing year of 2015, which was 0.9C above the 20th century average. This beat the previous record warmth of 2014 by 0.16C.

Global land and ocean temperature anomalies, January-December. Photograph: Noaa

These tumbling temperature records are often accompanied in media reports by the caveat that we are experiencing a particularly strong El Niño - perhaps the largest in history. But should El Niño and climate change be given equal billing?
No, according to Professor Michael Mann, the director of Penn State Earth System Science Centre. He said it was possible to look back over the temperature records and assess the impact of an El Niño on global temperatures.
“A number of folks have done this,” he said, “and come to the conclusion it was responsible for less than 0.1C of the anomalous warmth. In other words, we would have set an all-time global temperature record [in 2015] even without any help from El Niño.”
Global surface temperature is the major yardstick used to track how we are changing the climate. It is the average the UN Paris agreement refers to.
But the atmosphere doesn’t stop at the surface. In fact 93% of the extra energy trapped by the greenhouse gases humans have emitted gets sunk into the oceans – just 1% ends up in the atmosphere where temperature is most often and most thoroughly measured. During El Niño, which occurs every three to six years, currents in the Pacific Ocean bring warm water to the surface and heat up the air.
Jeff Knight from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, said their modelling set the additional heat from a big El Niño, like the current one, at about 0.2C. He said wind patterns in the northern hemisphere had added another 0.1C to recent monthly readings.
“The bottom line is that the contributions of the current El Niño and wind patterns to the very warm conditions globally over the last couple of months are relatively small compared to the anthropogenically driven increase in global temperature since pre-industrial times,” he added.

Steffen said the definitive assessment of this El Niño and its effect on the world’s temperature would only be possible once the event had run its course (it has now peaked and is expected to end in the second quarter of this year). But he agreed that past El Niño cycles could be an appropriate guide for the order of magnitude of the effect.

The picture becomes less clear cut when we talk about monthly records. Even weather trends can have small effects on the monthly average temperature, said Knight. The effect of El Niño traditionally increases as it dies, so Mann believes it may have added more than the “nominal” o.1C during the past three months.
In the Arctic, the effect of El Niño is poorly understood but likely to be weak, said Knight. “Given that the Arctic has been very warm for a number of years, with record low sea ice, it is more likely that the warmth there currently is part of a long-term trend rather than the response to a episodic event like El Niño.”
Steffen says quantifying the relative contributions of El Niño and climate change on a monthly or even annual basis cannot help to answer how fast the world is warming. Only trends over 30 years really matter.
But the pile up of records we have had in the early part of this century are significant. All things being constant, record hot years should occur once every 150 years. Yet 1998, 2005, 2010, 2014 and 2015 have all been record breakers.
A study published in January found that even without last year’s mammoth anomaly such a run was 600 to 130,000 times more likely to have occurred with human interference than without.
“The fact that you are getting records so close, one after the other is really striking. And that is symptomatic of that long-term trend,” said Steffen.
But while they may be poor signals for long-term climate change, record hot months and years do have an immediate and tangible impact.
“It’s making heat waves worse. Here in Australia it bumps up the bushfire danger weather really fast. It tends to lead to drier conditions in our part of the world. These things are exacerbated by El Niños, so I don’t want to downplay the importance of them for human suffering,” said Steffen.

Australia Turns Its Back on Climate Science

New York Times - Editorial Board

For decades, Australia has run the most advanced and comprehensive atmosphere and ocean monitoring programs in the Southern Hemisphere, providing critical information not only for a nation that is already the driest on earth and fast getting drier, but also for a world in urgent need of such data to search for ways to cope with climate change.
Last month, to the dismay of climate scientists around the world, Australia's federally financed science agency — the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or Csiro — announced plans to shift its focus to commercially viable projects and cut or reassign 350 researchers. The decision, as more than 3,000 climate scientists have declared in an open letter to the Australian government, demonstrates a deplorable misunderstanding of the importance of basic research into what is arguably the greatest challenge facing the planet.
Larry Marshall, a Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist who returned to Australia in January 2015 to take charge of Csiro, explained the change in the agency's mission by saying that climate change was now a settled question "and the new question is what do we do about it and how do we find solutions for the climate we will be living with." The decision did not come entirely out of the blue: Australia's national climate policy has been in political flux for more than a decade, and in May 2014, Csiro's budget was severely cut and almost 1,000 positions were eliminated. But climate scientists were stunned by the severity and illogic of Dr. Marshall's decision.

Staff cutbacks and a shift in focus threaten climate work done at the Cape Grim research station in Tasmania, Australia. Credit CSIRO

Certainly there are good reasons for research institutes like Csiro to cooperate with industry in the search for ways to adapt to a warming planet. But to do this at the expense of research and monitoring — undermining the search for commercially viable solutions that Csiro proposes to join — makes no sense. Long-term research on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and on changing ocean and weather processes, is essential to learn what lies ahead and how to prepare for it. Moreover, as the open letter from the scientists put it, Australia is a "canary in the climate change coal mine," spanning different climate zones and experiencing steady decreases in rainfall.
The cutbacks could also obstruct Australia's role in supporting the landmark climate agreement reached in Paris in December, which, among other things, calls on scientifically advanced countries like Australia to assist developing countries with advice and support.
Lead scientists from major United States organizations, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the NASA-sponsored Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment, have begun quietly urging the Australian government to reverse course. At the very least, the government should suspend the changes at Csiro and allow an independent review of whether they are in the best interests of Australia, the Southern Hemisphere or the earth.

CSIRO Risking International Ridicule Over Cuts To Water And Climate Research

Fairfax - Ross Peake

The atmosphere at CSIRO's Black Mountain laboratories is "mutinous", a current scientist says. "This is an attack on public good science and core CSIRO values."

A CSIRO scientist says the decision to axe 350 staff has caused chaos and witch-hunts within the organisation.

The scientist is enraged about the proposed inexplicable cuts to the scientific organisation's flagship programs on climate change and water. And the mood among staff will get much worse unless Malcolm Turnbull is prepared to reverse the cuts.
About 350 staff will go over two years, with deep cuts in the Oceans and Atmosphere division and the Land and Water division.

Canberra Entomologist Dr Philip Spradbery is shocked at the changes in the Black Mountain site and describes the mood among staff as a 'morgue'. Photo: Rohan Thomson

"The organisation is in chaos and IT witch-hunts of staff 'leaking' or dissenting are in progress, apparently," the scientist says, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
CSIRO chief Larry Marshall, a physics-trained, long-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur, made the abrupt decision to axe staff.
Resources saved are to be devoted instead to dealing with climate mitigation – cutting greenhouse gases – and adapting to the inevitable impacts.
The argument is that the focus should shift away from climate change research and data collection because the question of global warming has been "settled".

One of the world's three major atmospheric greenhouse gas recording stations at Cape Grim is under threat. 

However, many scientists argue it's critical to keep watching and measuring.
The focus of the media coverage is the cuts to climate science. But scientists say the cuts of land and water science are even more serious and these cuts affect Canberra most.
CSIRO was already being criticised for making redundant the bulk of its globally respected optics team, which a US scientist said made a "phenomenal" contribution to the search for gravitational waves.
Around the world the backlash against the job cuts is fierce – the international scientific community is aghast that Australia is preparing to abrogate its role as the eyes and ears in the southern hemisphere.
Almost 3000 scientists from nearly 60 nations signed a petition calling on Australia to halt the CSIRO's plans to halve the number of researchers working on climate monitoring and modelling.
Australia's ability to assess future risks and plan for climate change adaptation "crucially depends" on maintaining this research capacity, they said.
Is it really that bad?
Well, consider this: how does a row about a scientific organisation in Australia produce a scathing article in the New York Times?
It says Australia's science agency's decision to lay off 350 researchers and shift the organisation's focus to more commercial enterprises threatens the work done at the Cape Grim monitoring station and "climate studies around the world".
This week, as the row over the cuts continued, young scientists from around the country descended on Canberra for the annual Science meets Parliament where they line up meetings with their local backbenchers and then are shocked by the school yard antics of Question Time.
As part of the week, Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel delivered the Wednesday speech at the National Press Club where he admitted "a lot of effort" was needed to maintain the nation's climate research capacity following the restructure at CSIRO.
Fairfax Media went to former heads of CSIRO and other long-serving and retired staff in Canberra to gauge the implications of the cuts.
Former CSIRO senior scientist Dr Philip Spradbery says the Black Mountain site is "like a morgue".
Spradbery has been practicing science for more than half a century and operated a wasp awareness hotline for the ACT government from his Yarralumla home's laboratory.
The entomologist worked for CSIRO for four decades including 20 years at the Black Mountain site where he witnessed staff morale decline.
The cuts targeted high earning senior researchers but appeared to leave administration unscathed, he says.
"What's been happening is the really good people were the ones being given the pat on the back and told it's time to go. I've got nothing against the bureaucrats but it seemed to some of us scientists that it would end up with a laboratory full of administrators and not a single scientist, no lab coats at all."
He left and established XCS consulting "with all these ex-CSIRO scientists who were being given the boot or invited to leave".
Visiting the national insect collection recently, he was struck by the changes at the Black Mountain site.
"The mood – quite honestly, the word I used to describe it to colleagues was, a morgue, not a nice word to use but it was very unpopulated, very few people around. It seemed to lack any vibrancy. In the old days you'd be bumping into people in corridors all the time," he says.
"I think it's a function of the number of staff who have gone and the people who remain are few and far between."
Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe of Hackett, one of Australia's most famous wildlife scientists, says in CSIRO's first 50 years, its discoveries were worth many times more to Australia than the money invested in it.
"Science is about understanding the unknown; business is about exploiting the known," he says.
"As a businessman, Larry Marshall thinks we now know sufficient about climate change and CSIRO must redirect its resources towards mitigation. He is wrong.
"It is imperative that CSIRO continue to study what is happening in the Southern Ocean as profound changes begin in the Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers.
"These are the great unknowns – even unknown unknowns – that we ignore at our peril. While mitigation is important, it is more the province of politics and law than first order science.
"Since the business model for CSIRO has so comprehensively failed, the government should seriously consider restoring the structure that worked so well for so long."
Max Whitten, former chief of CSIRO Entomology, says the finest piece of taxonomic detective work ever conducted by the division was to solve the riddle of gum tree scribbles.
"Until then it was still a complete enigma for children and their parents ever since Snugglepot and Cuddlepie popularised the scribbles," he says.
"[This is] stupendous science, stupendous outcome, cultural enrichment for the taxpayer by humble scientists finally deciphering nature's message stick!"
Nationally-recognised author Clive Hamilton who is based at Charles Sturt University's Canberra campus, says the CSIRO cuts have been noticed around the world and have caused great consternation in the global climate science community.
"People have been emailing me asking 'What's going on there? We thought things would change under Prime Minister Turnbull, but they are getting worse'," he told Fairfax Media.
"At the Paris climate conference last December the world community united for the first time to get serious about global warming. But Australia is slashing its expertise at the same time as our carbon emission are growing.
"It's clear from his email to staff that Larry Marshall doesn't have a clue about climate science – yet he is the chief of this country's premier scientific research body."
Dr Graeme Pearman, chief of atmospheric research at CSIRO for a decade, says climate scientists believe the plan to shift the investment in their research from the physical and dynamical impacts of climate change to adapting to these changes, is "absurd".
"Given the state of current scientific knowledge of what to expect globally or regionally with global warming, physical climate research must go hand-in-hand with choices-risk management-policies related to how we respond with emissions reduction efforts and adaptation to change," he says.
"But this announcement is consistent with a concerning trend in Australia's investment in science often reflecting the ideological view that all we need to do is to invest in science that is likely to reap economic wealth and somehow the 'good life' will follow.
"It also highlights the surreptitious loss of independence of CSIRO and its capacity to set a research portfolio reflective of the wider needs of the Australian community now and in the longer term, independent of the transitory notions of individual CEOs, ministers or governments."
Long-term CSIRO watcher Julian Cribb says the latest round of cuts is a tragedy.
He was a journalist at The Australian before working in public affairs at the science organisation.
"It's a very hasty decision to cut a whole lot of public good science in favour of science that's really just rats and mice, dollar-funded science, short term, low rent science basically," he says.
"Clearly that's what the chief executive of CSIRO wants now is to transform the organisation from being a public good institution which is what its act proclaims it is, into really something that just does panel beating for industry.
"The CSIRO has always been an industrial research organisation but it's always had a very strong mission to do public good science and if you think about soil, water and climate, those three things are utterly crucial to Australians inhabiting this continent for the next 1000 years – to cut them out is basically saying, we don't want to understand our own continent."
Cribb says the global backlash against the cuts is because Australia is the eyes in the southern hemisphere of the international scientific community.
"Of all the countries in the southern hemisphere, we are the one who has the skills, the equipment and the experience to measure, understand and monitor what's going on with the climate," he says.
"You can't just study half the planet – the thing about climate change is you have to study the whole thing – so we are an important cog in the machine of climate understanding, world wide. And to take that out is an affront to climate science worldwide."
Cribb sees the cuts as an attempt to appeal to the anti-climate faction within the government.
"I think they find it easy to sacrifice that part of science because it doesn't have much of a political constituency within the government. There are no Liberal backbenchers springing to their feet, waving a sheaf of notes about it and protesting about it because they're very poorly educated, they just don't understand climate change, so it's an easy decision to make."
He says CSIRO scientists have done outstanding work on drought and the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
"Our understanding of drought and how to manage water when we get serious drought is down to CSIRO – and here we are wiping that out. That's a dreadful decision, it really is a dreadful decision."
He warns Australia is in serious danger of dismantling its water science.
"We're losing our ability to manage our own water into the future, there is no more precious resource in Australia," he says.
"So this is a really foolish decision, to take down land and water science and likewise with climate, the two are interwoven.
"The climate people who've got the bullet are modellers, modellers don't make you a lot of money.
"It's for the nation and it's for perpetuity, it's knowledge that will be used one hundred and a thousand years from now, it's got almost infinite value for Australia and here we are, cutting it off at the knees.
"Once you've axed a whole area of science, you've destroyed it root and branch ... you've lost all the knowledge, you've lost the experience, you've lost the deep wisdom that you had, it's like book burning in medieval times.
"Once you've destroyed your knowledge, it's very, very hard to start up again from ground zero.
"For Australia to damage itself in this one area of science is like Australia deciding to put out one of its eyes.
As a member of the taxpaying Australian public who funds CSIRO, I say Larry Marshall has not the right to do that with our science."