12/02/2020

Climate Models Are Running Red Hot, And Scientists Don’t Know Why

Bloomberg - Eric Roston

The simulators used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time.
A malnourished wild horse in Australia's Bago State Forest. Photographer: Matthew Abbott/The New York Times via Redux

Dozens of climate models
There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they’ve agreed on what it would take to heat the planet by about 3° Celsius. It’s an outcome that would be disastrous—flooded cities, agricultural failures, deadly heat—but there’s been a grim steadiness in the consensus among these complicated climate simulations.
Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot. The scientists who hone these systems used the same assumptions about greenhouse-gas emissions as before and came back with far worse outcomes. Some produced projections in excess of 5°C, a nightmare scenario.
The scientists involved couldn’t agree on why—or if the results should be trusted. Climatologists began “talking to each other like, ‘What’d you get?’, ‘What’d you get?’” said Andrew Gettelman, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, which builds a high-profile climate model.
“The question is whether they’ve overshot,” said Mark Zelinka, staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
People fleeing Australian bushfires in December 2019. Photographer: Justin McManus/The Age/Fairfax Media via Getty Images
Researchers are starting to put together a­nswers, a task that will take months at best, and there’s not yet agreement on how to interpret the hotter results.
The reason for worry is that these same models have successfully projected global warming for a half century.
Their output continues to frame all major scientific, policy and private-sector climate goals and debates, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out next year. If the same amount of climate pollution will bring faster warming than previously thought, humanity would have less time to avoid the worst impacts.
Earth’s key data points
For now, however, there are doubts and worries. A higher warming estimate “probably isn’t the right answer,” said Klaus Wyser, senior researcher at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.
His model produced a result of about 4.3°C warming, a 30% jump over its previous update. “We hope it’s not the right answer.”
This uncertainty over how to read the models highlights one of the central challenges of climate change. On the one hand, policy makers and members of the public are turning to scientists as never before to explain historic wildfires, devastating droughts and spring-like temperatures in mid-winter. And the bedrock of the science has never been more solid. But the questions vexing experts now are probably the most important of all: Just how bad is it going to get—and how soon?

Earth-system models
Earth-system models are the workhorses of climate research, helping scientists test ideas about the impact of ice-sheet melting, soil moisture and clouds, all without waiting for the actual planet to fall apart.
There are more than a hundred models used to forecast the relationship between carbon dioxide and warming, developed by about two dozen independent research groups.
One question modeling can help answer is called “climate sensitivity,” an estimate of how much warmer the planet will be once it has adjusted to atmospheric CO₂ at double the pre-industrial level. (At current rates, CO₂ could reach a doubling point in the last decades of this century.) This is the old, reliable number that’s come out to 3°C for 40 years. It was as close as anything gets to certainty.
It takes climate modelers, who run hugely complex calculations on supercomputers, more than a biblical six days to create their virtual worlds. Modules for air, land and sea all churn together and interact, and through early runs the researchers will make adjustments for troubleshooting and debugging that amount to re-wiring the whole world. The first step is to replicate actual conditions of the 20th century within the model; then you can trust the software to forecast the future.
The model run by NCAR, one of American’s main climate-science institutions, started producing unusual data last year while trying to reproduce the recent past. “We got some really strange results,” Gettelman said.
A gap created by flowing water at the edge of the Aletsch glacier near Bettmeralp, Switzerland. Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Europe
The scientists went on to try 300 configurations of rain, pollution, and heat flows—something they can do as gods of their own digital earth—before matching the model to history. But by solving that puzzle, Gettelman’s team sent future projections upward at an unheard-of rate. NCAR found that CO₂ doubling would lead to 5.3°C world, a 33% jump from the model’s past reading on global warming.
Soon there were multiple teams at other institutions putting out new climate-sensitivity numbers that looked like worst-case scenarios on steroids. The Met Office Hadley Center, the U.K.’s main research group, found a doubling of CO₂ would deliver 5.5°C warming. A team at the U.S. Department of Energy ended up with 5.3°C, and the Canadian model topped out at 5.6°C. France’s National Center for Meteorological Research saw its estimate jump to 4.9°C from 3.3°C.

Hot Models
The Earth could warm 3°C if CO2 doubles, scientists thought.
Earth system models suggest faster warming — or a quirk in time-tested simulations.
Source: Mark D. Zelinka et al. "Causes of higher climate sensitivity in CMIP6 models." Geophysical Research Letters
In all, as many as a fifth of new results published in the last year have come in with anomalously high climate sensitivity. There are dozens still left to report, and their results will determine whether these grim forecasts are outliers or significant findings.
If there does turn out to be a consensus around these new, higher estimates, that could have real impact on how governments and businesses respond to climate risk. The 2015 Paris Agreement asks nations to keep global warming below 1.5°C, an increasingly distant hope given that we’re now two-thirds of the way there. But the timetable on which the world agreed to act in the name of that goal was formed, in part, by reading the very same climate models that are now producing higher estimates.
And that could mean the goal envisioned by Paris is already out of reach.
Wyser was expecting to get calls from journalists about the disturbing hot-model results. “It was known in the research community for, let’s say, about a year,” he said. But he didn't know how to go about communicating the findings, and almost no one outside of the tight network of researchers came looking for answers. “It more or less just passed unnoticed.”
Two researchers recently suggested that the world is currently on a pathway to warm 3°C by 2100. But that estimate could be as low as 1.9°C or as high as 4.4°C, depending on how sensitive the real-world climate turns out to actually be. That question hinges on if the hot-running models are a match for reality or missing something.

Climate models
Climate models have been doing a fine job projecting warming for a long time. A recent study compared models as old as 1970 with observations made in the decades since. Some models warmed up too much, and some too little, but 14 of 17 past projections turned out to be consistent with the measured path of global average temperatures.
“Particularly impressive” were models from the 1970s because there wasn’t much observable evidence for warming at that time. Back then, the paper noted, “the world was thought to have been cooling for the past few decades.”
To a degree, every scientist suspects their model is wrong. There’s even an aphorism about this: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Those now attempting to figure out the mystery of the hot climate models think one factor might have caused the recent unusual results: clouds. It turns out simulated clouds often cause headaches for climate modelers.
“We hope it’s not the right answer”
Klaus Wyser’s group “switched off” some of the new cloud and aerosol settings in their model, he said, and that sent climate sensitivity back down to previous levels. A new research paper co-authored by Zelinka from the Lawrence Livermore National Lab likewise pointed to the role of virtual clouds in determining the results.
It’s not as simple as reverting to older versions of these simulations. The challenge ahead, Gettelman said, lies in figuring out how tweaks to models can introduce such turmoil into the final results. “What really scares me is that our model looked better for some really good physical reasons,” he said. “So we can't throw them out yet.”
In the next year, climate-modeling groups will peruse each other’s results to figure out how seemingly good improvements in cloud and aerosol science may have pushed the models into hotter states. These conversations happen in the open, through peer-reviewed journals, conferences and blog posts. The authors of the main UN climate-science reports will follow along and try to stitch together a big picture, for release in 2021.
In the meantime, Gettelman and colleagues around the world will push ahead. “It’s like a giant puzzle,” he said, “where everybody gets a little piece.”

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Zali Steggall Wants The Public To Force Politicians To Act On Climate Change, Malcolm Turnbull Hits Out At Nationals Over Coal

ABC News - Stephanie Borys

Zali Steggall's climate change push has the backing of the bulk of the Lower House crossbench. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Key points
  • Crossbench MPs are united in a push pressuring the Government to cut carbon emissions
  • It comes as Nationals and Liberals bicker over Government funding new coal-fired power plants
  • Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull dubs a push for Government funding for coal "nuts"

Pressure is building on the Federal Government to do more to address climate change with politicians now turning to Australians to ask for their help, as Parliament continues to bicker over the best way forward.
Independent MP Zali Steggall, who toppled former prime minister Tony Abbott from his Sydney blue ribbon seat of Warringah, announced on Monday she would introduce a private member's bill to Parliament.
"This is for the long-term safety of Australians," she said.
Her parliamentary push comes as tension between the Coalition parties bubble over, with Liberal and Nationals MPs openly criticising each other despite sitting on the same Government benches.
Some in the Nationals are pushing for new coal-fired power plants, a bid urban Liberals in socially progressive electorates are resisting.
The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has even weighed into the debate and has slapped down the rhetoric some Nationals have put forward.
Ms Steggall wants a national plan to further reduce emissions, which would be guided by the establishment of an independent climate change commission (CCC) that would advise the Government and Parliament.
While it has the support of the crossbench, the bill is expected to fail because it does not have the backing of Labor and the Government.
Zali Steggall addressed a climate rally on the front lawns of Parliament House on the first sitting day of the year. (ABC News: Sean Davey)
But Ms Steggall remains confident she can convince some MPs in the major parties to change their minds and believes voters could help play a role.
"Let's burst the bubble of Canberra," she told reporters in Canberra.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison often uses the term "Canberra bubble" when dismissing questions from journalists.
Ms Steggall said the Prime Minister cannot ignore voters and has set up a website outlining how Australians can get in touch with their local MP to voice their concerns.
She is hopeful people power will force the Government to act.
"2020 is a new decade. Let's run a line in the sand on the past divisions we have had," Ms Steggall said.
Climate change protesters outside Parliament House for the first sitting of the year. (ABC News: Sean Davey)

'It's been a fault line in the Coalition for a long time'
While the debate on climate change intensifies, a handful of Nationals have been agitating for greater Commonwealth investment in coal.
Mr Turnbull, who was in Canberra for the Indonesian President's visit, said the issue has been a "fault line" within the Coalition for some time.
"Those people who are advocating that the Government should fund coal-fired power are basically making a case for higher emissions and higher energy prices and that is nuts," he said.
At the weekend, the Federal Government announced a $4-million feasibility study for a proposed coal mine in Queensland.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has downplayed the prospect of federal money being pumped into the project long term.
"Ultimately, a project like that will have to stack up commercially, it will have to stack up on its own right, and that is obviously a matter for after the feasibility study," he said.
But the message being issued by his colleague, Queensland Nationals MP George Christensen, couldn't be more different.
"In North Queensland, a clean coal-fired power project has been granted $4 million by the Morrison Government for planning works to get the project to construction stage," he said in a statement.
Dave Sharma rebuffed Nationals MPs' push for the Government to fund new coal-fired power plants. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
In a clear sign the debate is escalating within the Coalition, Sydney Liberal MPs took to Sky News to rebuff any suggestion that federal money should be used.
"I don't think we should be funding coal fire power stations," Liberal MP Trent Mr Zimmerman said.
Sources have told the ABC that politicians like Mr Zimmerman and Dave Sharma, in the neighbouring seat of Wentworth, are facing pressures in their once safe Liberal seats.
Senior Liberal figures fear supporting new coal powerplants will put the safety of urban Liberal seats at risk.
"I can't see us in a position where the Government is underwriting a new coal-fired power station," Mr Sharma told Sky News.
"Certainly, there's a case to be made to extend the life of existing coal-fired power assets and if the private sector wants to come in and do this then that's a different proposition."
George Christensen wants the Federal Government to help fund new coal-fired power plants. (ABC News: Marco Catalano)


New emissions target
The Federal Government is assessing what emissions targets it will pursue beyond 2030.
A number of countries have committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and Senator Cormann confirmed that was under consideration in Australia.
"We will consider over the next few months and in good time before COP 26 in Glasgow what our 30-year target should be to 2050," he said.
"We will be guided by wanting to have an agenda that is environmentally effective and economically responsible."
While the Government argues changes to climate policy need to be considered in the context of the broader economy, Ms Steggall said it would be more costly not to act.
"What we have seen over this summer … is businesses grind to a halt due to air pollution, we've had regional communities devastated by drought and productivity down, we've had bushfire communities shut down for months," she said.
"Business as usual is not a zero-sum game."

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Scientists Are Using Twitter To Measure The Impact Of Climate Change

CNBC - Pippa Stevens

Flooded street on Sept. 29, 2015. in Miami Beach, Florida, which engaged in a five-year, $400 million storm water pump program. Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Key points
  • A new study used Twitter posts to measure the frequency of minor and recurring floods — also known as nuisance flooding — along the United States’ East and Gulf Coasts.
  • The study found that this type of flooding is more common in 22 counties than official data would suggest. These counties include major cities such as New York, Miami and Boston, which combined have a population of more than 13 million people.
  • “Coastal floods and inundation are projected to produce some of the primary social impacts of climate change, imposing significant costs on communities around the world,” the report said.
Minor and recurring floods — also known as nuisance flooding — may be more frequent than official figures would suggest, according to a new study published by Nature Communications.
The study focusing on flood levels along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts found that 22 counties experience nuisance flooding at water levels much lower than what an official gauge would register as a flood. Cities in the counties include New York, Miami and Boston, which have a combined population of over 13 million people.
“Our analysis implies that large populations might currently be exposed to nuisance flooding not identified via standard measures,” said the report by Frances C. Moore of the University of California, Davis’ Department of Environmental Science and Policy and Nick Obradovich of the Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin.
To conduct their analysis, the scientists turned to Twitter.
As the climate crisis intensifies and natural disasters become more frequent and powerful, scientists are increasingly turning to social media as a way to assess the damage and impact on a more localized scale.
In this case, Twitter was useful because the 3,700 miles of the East and Gulf Coasts have only about 132 tidal gauge stations. This means it’s difficult to measure the impact of changing water levels on specific areas.
“The extent of flooding may be highly variable within a small geographic area, depending on local topography,” the scientists said. Additionally, the consequences of higher water levels vary across regions. For instance, two areas could experience the same amount of flooding, but one could include a frequently trafficked road, while the other could be on farmland.
Given the geographic reach of Twitter, as well as the volume and location-specific nature of tweets, the platform can be used to track “nuisance coastal flooding that is both more regular and less consequential,” the researchers said. Because the consequences of this type of flood are annoying rather than deadly, they’re not always measured or recorded.
Two cars are caught by a wave coming over the seawall as heavy seas come ashore in Winthrop, Mass., in 2018. Michael Dwyer | AP
The scientists analyzed 5 million tweets between March 2014 and November 2016 that mentioned flood-related terms and were located in a county along the shoreline.
To monitor changes in Twitter activity, they defined a “remarkable threshold” for coastal flooding as when county-specific Twitter posts increased by 25%. They then compared this data with official flood records. “Minor tidal flooding that is remarkable to residents happens at a tide height different from that defining minor coastal flooding,” the scientists concluded.
The researchers noted that while flooding caused by high tides and storm surges is already increasing, it’s set to become “more frequent and severe as sea-levels rise globally.”
A woman crosses a flooded street in 2015. Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
This is not the first academic paper to harness the power of social media. The authors pointed to several previous studies that relied on social media, including a 2016 report that focused on using social media to access disaster damage and a 2019 paper that used Twitter to measure damages from earthquakes.
Several drawbacks and inconsistencies come with using social media, the researchers noted.
For one, Twitter is a self-selecting crowd and subset of the population. Prior research has also shown that the more people experience things, the less remarkable they become. In other words, while someone may have tweeted about the first few floods they experienced, after a while it becomes commonplace rather than notable. Additionally, places that experience frequent flooding could bolster their infrastructure, meaning still-recurring higher water levels would be less noticeable.
However, several studies have warned about the danger to coastal communities as sea levels rise.
“Coastal floods and inundation are projected to produce some of the primary social impacts of climate change, imposing significant costs on communities around the world,” the report concluded.

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11/02/2020

(AU) Australia Will Take New Emissions Reduction Target To Glasgow Climate Summit

The Age - Rob Harris

Australia will take a new long-term emissions reduction target to November's UN climate summit, as the Morrison government weighs up whether to join more than 80 countries to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
A review into the potential economic impacts of adopting the goal will be finalised later this year in time for the Glasgow summit, as a growing number of Liberal MPs speak out on the need for the Coalition government to adopt more-ambitious climate policies.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who shares a close relationship with his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, has called on countries around the world to follow the United Kingdom in adopting the 2050 target as part of the climate talks this year.
Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor: The government expects to reach an emissions target before the Glasgow summit. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor told The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald the government would settle on its 2050 strategy before Glasgow, which has been billed as the most-critical meeting since Paris five years ago.
"The government expects to deliver a long-term emissions reduction strategy before COP26 (the Glasgow summit)," Mr Taylor said.
Mr Morrison last week vowed not to be "bullied” on climate change as the moderate and conservative wings of the Coalition slugged it out behind closed doors over energy and emissions policies.
While Nationals MPs Barnaby Joyce, George Christensen, David Gillespie and former minister Matt Canavan have called for greater support for the coal industry, a group of Liberals including Tim Wilson, Katie Allen, Fiona Martin, Trent Zimmerman and John Alexander warned their constituents wanted greater action.
Independent MP Zali Steggall, who deposed former prime minister Tony Abbott on a platform of climate action last May, will on Monday seek support from a number of disaffected Liberal MPs  following two months of devastating bushfires and smoke-choked capital cities.
Ms Steggall will release the details of her private member's bill to establish a new independent Climate Change Commission which would outsource climate targets and policies to public servants.


The top 10 highest carbon emitters have been named, can you guess who they are?

Mr Taylor said on Sunday the government believed the answer was not a new tax or more bureaucracy but "practical change" driven by science and technology.
"The pathway to meaningful impacts on global emissions is through development and deployment of new technologies," Mr Taylor said.
"That is where Australia can have the biggest impact on reducing global emissions."
He confirmed the government expected to deliver a long-term emissions reduction strategy before the Glasgow summit.
About 80 countries around the world are committed to such a target, but many are small economies with small greenhouse gas outputs.
The European Union is the biggest bloc on the brink of signing up to net zero, with major economies such as China, the US and India showing little sign of similar ambition.
All Australian state governments have adopted the target, with Mr Morrison committing to review the goal as part of last year's Pacific Islands Forum.
When asked directly about the 2050 target, Mr Morrison said he would "never make a commitment like that if I couldn’t tell the Australian people what it would cost them”.
Mr Taylor and Mr Morrison have continued to declare Australia would "meet and beat" its 2030 Paris targets of reducing emissions by between 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels, potentially without using Kyoto carryover credits.
As a signatory to the Paris Agreement, the government has also committed to achieving net zero emission globally in the second half of the century.
The government is also close to finalising its draft Technology Investment Roadmap, which it says will set a framework for investment priorities in emissions-reducing technologies over the short term (to 2022), medium term (to 2030) and long term (to 2050).
Ms Steggall will circulate the details of her bill to all MPs as well as business, environmental and relevant stakeholder groups on Monday, with the crossbench MP urging a conscience vote on the issue on March 23.
"It is time to take the party politics out of climate policy," she said. "Now is the time for a rational approach to climate change."
Labor deputy leader Richard Marles said on Sunday the opposition wanted to achieve bipartisanship with the government on climate change policy.
“We have been seeking bipartisanship for a long time in relation to this. But to get bipartisanship, we actually need to have a side that we can talk to,” Mr Marles said.

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(AU) Media Watch Host Paul Barry Fans Flames, Dodges Climate Change Facts

The Australian - Chris Kenny

Media Watch host Paul Barry.
The ABC’s Media Watch, hosted by Paul Barry, claims the high moral ground, declaring it exposes “conflicts of interest, journalistic deceit, misrepresentation, manipulation and plagiarism”. But the problem is that it is full of journalistic deceit, misrepresentation and manipulation itself.
It flouts ABC charter demands for objectivity and accuracy. Rather than be an independent arbiter of media standards, Barry uses it to target the ABC’s commercial rivals and wage ideological battles supporting political causes dear to the green left.
The program shows only occasional interest in revealing ABC deceptions and cannot bring itself to examine the organisation’s chronic political bias.
Instead, it entrenches them. Media Watch is Barry’s vehicle for preaching his climate change-obsessed views and trying to corral journalism within his jaundiced boundaries. Rather than measure reporting against facts, the program weighs journalism it doesn’t like against the opinions that dominate the green-left Zeitgeist.
Last week’s first program for the year was a classic of the genre because it misrepresented people and facts in order to promote global warming alarmism and denounce News Corp journalism.
Barry’s opening line was demonstrably untrue. “Welcome to Groundhog Day,” he said, “where the loudest voices at News Corp are adamant that the summer’s terrifying bushfires have nothing to do with climate change.”
Barry and his team must have known it was a lie when putting their program together. For instance, my repeated position on television and in print, based on public scientific and expert documents, was only that activists were grossly exaggerating the role of climate change.
On December 14 in this newspaper I wrote of bushfire and drought that: “The expert analysis shows that if there is a long-term influence from climate change on either of these blights, it will be to make each of them slightly more common in a land where they are common already. Whatever Australia does on carbon emissions can have no impact on any of this, at least for decades to come as global emissions continue to rise.”
Host of Media Watch, Paul Barry. Picture: Sam Mooy
On January 18: “The climate change debate should be part of the discussion but is marginal compared with the central fire management issues and has been ghoulishly fanned as activists exploit real-life trauma for politics … The science is clear, predicting that in the southeast of the country bad fire conditions will become more common because endemic summer heat and dryness are expected to increase, while regions such as northern NSW may have summer rains delayed more often, as they have been in this drought year. The reason these climate changes should be relatively marginal in the discussion is that they relate to making an existing catastrophic threat slightly more common.”
Naturally I made many similar comments on TV and radio. Barry also misrepresented my Sky News colleague, Australian Financial Review columnist and Spectator Australia editor Rowan Dean, who says climate policy in Australia could only have a small (1.3 per cent) effect on bushfire intensity.
Barry also created the impression Andrew Bolt, of Sky News and The Herald Sun, had referred to climate science as ­“lunatic stuff” when he knew Bolt was referring to climate protesters. This is the sort of misrepresentation that trashes ABC guidelines and journalistic ethics; and Barry and the ABC do this in pursuit of ideological goals.
Media Watch was full of other idiotic comments such as this: “Passionate denial that the bushfires should make us act on climate change runs right across the Murdoch media in this country reaching an audience of millions.”
Again it is based on a false premise — Barry and the ABC must know Australia is a signatory to the Paris climate agreement and is doing more to reduce emissions than most other nations — and it is also absurd to suggest a bad summer of bushfires should be the sudden catalyst in global warming policy. This is the rhetoric of climate activists, not a serious media watchdog.
Paul Barry outside the main entrance to the ABC building at Ultimo in Sydney.
Barry referred collectively and offensively to me, Bolt, Dean, Alan Jones, Peta Credlin and Paul Murray as “News Corp’s deniers” even though I have never disputed the science of anthropogenic global warming. Others also accept the science and have a variety of nuanced views, and the strongest opponents of climate action, Dean and Jones, are as closely or more closely linked to Nine Media rather than News Corp (guess those facts don’t suit Barry’s narrative).
Barry said we “all sing from the same song sheet on climate change”, when clearly we have differing views (perhaps from the groupthink of the ABC this diversity of views is hard to comprehend). What we do have in common is a thirst for facts, which we inject into the debate. But Barry’s critique avoided facts.
Media Watch focused on how some of us challenged and exposed claims made as far back as November that this season’s fires were unprecedented.
We did this through diligent attention to verifiable information and historical records.
Barry dismisses these assessments, not based on facts, but based on opinions he prefers.
Some of his preferred opinions were from authoritative voices but they were still just opinions — what matters are facts.
Barry’s case to establish a lack of precedent was emotive tosh: “Mass evacuations, homes and businesses destroyed, a billion animals dead, an area 1.5 times the size of Tasmania burnt to ashes, our big cities choking with smoke and fires still raging.” He completely dodged the fact that none of this was unprecedented.
I have demonstrated this through sharing of facts and historical records in this newspaper and on Sky News.
Other colleagues have done similar. Media Watch knows this but censors this reality in order to make its malicious, jaundiced and ideological case.
The ABC has not reported these facts. The ABC adopts the sinister approach of censoring these facts to mislead the public, and then has the audacity to build a farrago of lies in order to discredit journalists who research and share the facts. This is not journalism but its evil twin.
Barry gave the game away when he said: “There’s no doubt climate change activists across the world think the fires should be a tipping point.” Clearly his thesis, his whole show, is not about facts, fairness and reality, it is about distorting reality so he can share the vibe of the climate activists.
Media Watch is using the taxes of Australian families against their own interests. And no one at the ABC or in the government has the fibre to intervene.

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(AU) Zali Steggall To Unveil Climate Change Bill And Push For A Conscience Vote For MPs

The Guardian - 

Now is the time for ‘modern Liberals’ to speak for their community rather than toe the party line, independent MP says
Zali Steggall says it is time to take the party politics out of climate policy, which is why she is calling for a conscience vote on her bill. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
  • Aims to limit global warming to well below 2C, pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
  • Net zero carbon emissions target by 2050.
  • To achieve the target, the minister creates an emissions budget.
  • Establishes a Climate Change Commission to prepare a national climate change risk assessment every five years.
  • The commission is made up of a chair, Australia's chief scientist and five other members - who must have experience in either climate science, business, agriculture, environmental management, energy, transport or regional development.
  • The assessments cover the risks climate change poses to the economy, society, agriculture, environment, and ecology.
  • In response, the minister creates a national adaptation plan.
  • The commission provides the minister with yearly adaptation plan progress reports.
  • Decisions made under the Act must be based on the best available science.
The woman who toppled Tony Abbott in Warringah at the last election on a platform of climate change action now has the whole parliament in her sights as she seeks bipartisan support for a climate change framework bill aimed at transitioning Australia to a decarbonised economy.
Zali Steggall – along with her fellow crossbenchers Rebekah Sharkie, Helen Haines and Andrew Wilkie – will release the climate change national framework for adaption and mitigation bill on Monday, ahead of its introduction to the parliament in March.
Steggall and the crossbench have begun a conscience vote campaign online and within their communities. They hope to win over enough government MPs to see the bill, which has been modelled on existing legislation in the UK, New Zealand and Ireland, pass in Australia.
However, the crossbench faces an uphill battle, with Scott Morrison declaring just last week he would not be “bullied’ into more action on climate change.
Steggall has previously called on the self-styled “modern Liberals” to support the legislation, which she said became imperative following the summer of unprecedented bushfires and resulting hazardous air quality that left communities reeling.
With the government’s party room once again at war over climate policy, Steggall said it was time to let individual MPs speak for their communities rather than toe a party line.
“The bill will be circulated to all MPs as well as business, environmental and relevant stakeholder groups on Monday,” she said.
“It is time to take the party politics out of climate policy. It is a matter of principle that we should all be committed to a safer future. I am urging for a conscience vote when I present the bill on March 23 as a private member’s bill. Now is the time for a rational approach to climate change.”
The crossbench group, working with climate action organisations, has already launched petitions calling on MPs to be allowed a conscience vote on the legislation once it is introduced.
Without a conscience vote, the bill is doomed to fail, with the government holding the numbers in the lower chamber.
Steggall said the events of the summer, on top of the climate impacts Australia was already suffering through, should be enough to prompt MPs to follow their conscience and vote on behalf of their constituents.
“This bill is a sensible and bipartisan approach to safeguarding Australia’s future against the impacts of climate change,” she said.
“The devastating fires that ripped through Australia over summer; the drought; and our deteriorating air pollution have shown how the impacts of climate change are a real threat to our way of life.”
Dave Sharma in Wentworth, Tim Wilson in Goldstein and Jason Falinski in Mackellar, as well as Brisbane’s Trevor Evans and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman are being targeted as potential allies. Newcomer Katie Allen, who won the seat of Higgins at the last election, and Bennelong MP John Alexander, who have both urged their government to take more action on climate policy in recent weeks, are also being urged to vote according to their electorate’s wishes.
Steggall has previously warned of voter backlash if moderate Liberals ignore their wishes on climate action.
“I think they have to be mindful of their electorates feeling disenfranchised if they aren’t voting in accordance with their majority wishes,” Steggall told the Guardian last month.
“The Liberal party is the party of the free vote – I am not asking them to do something they have never done before, and I think crossing the floor to vote for a climate act is something they need to do to represent their constituents.
“If you choose to ignore the amount of people in your electorate [who want stronger climate action] … you do so at your peril.”
Steggall and the crossbench have kept much of the bill under wraps, but have said they are aiming for a statutory long-term target of net zero emissions by 2050, as well as a climate change risk assessment for all sectors.
The group wants the government to focus on a national adaption schedule for Australia’s industries, based on what the science has revealed in regards to impacts of climate change.
To ensure accountability, the group wants to follow the UK’s lead and establish some sort of climate change authority, which would act independently of the government, and report back on the progress each year.
Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, said the opposition was looking to work with the government on a bipartisan climate policy.
“We have been seeking bipartisanship for a long time in relation to this,” he told the ABC on Sunday.
“But to get bipartisanship, we actually need to have a side that we can talk to. Right now, we’re watching a whole lot of people having a war with each other inside their party room … and that’s preventing the conservatives in this country even coming to the table to have a discussion about this.”

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10/02/2020

(AU) Climate Change Could Lead To Increase In Dangerous Firestorms That Were Once 'Rare'

Sydney Morning Herald - Laura Chung | Nick Moir

Scientists fear climate change will cause a once "rare and unique" weather event to become more common, as they race to develop predictive modelling and tools to help them better understand pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCB), commonly referred to as firestorms.
Jason Sharples, a professor of bushfire dynamics at the University of NSW, records the frequency of these storms around Australia and said between 1998, when relevant records started, and 2018, there were 62 confirmed pyroCBs.
But this bushfire season has seen that figure jump.
Lightning from a pyroCB storm breaks through while bushfires rage nearby. Credit: Nick Moir
Since September last year, at least another 30 pyroCBs have been recorded Australia-wide, while a further 15 possible storms are still being investigated.
"It's concerning, obviously, but I think this season comes down to extreme dryness and energy that the fuels were able to put out as they burnt," he said.
He notes that in previous years, the pyroCB pattern was irregular - with one or two events every three years or so, but recently these storms have increased in frequency.


Bushfires can create their own weather, generating ‘pyrocumulonimbus’ clouds and storms.

Professor Sharples is also a volunteer firefighter in the ACT and said he has been through an area ravaged by a pyroCB once. It was in the aftermath of the Black Saturday 2009 fires and he said the scene was "like a bomb had gone off".
"It was like a giant had taken a blow torch to it [the town]. You really get a moonscape feel," he said.

'Phenomenal increase'
A pyroCB event occurs when the intense heat from the fire causes air and smoke to rise and draws in cooler air.  If the air cools enough, the moisture in the plume condenses and forms a pyrocumulus cloud.
Under the right conditions, the cloud can mix with ice particles and cause lightning, producing a thunderstorm - known as pyrocumulonimbus.
The storms can cause unpredictable changes in fire behaviour, making it more dangerous for firefighters and nearby communities.
Fire researcher at the Bureau of Meteorology Mika Peace said over the past few decades, the knowledge about how fire and weather interact has increased.
"Since then, there's been a massive research effort in understanding pyroCBs and more recently predicting them," she said.
Dr Peace said in the 1950s and '60s, fire information focused on what was happening on the ground. Since then, scientists have turned their attention to what is happening above them too.
"This season has been unprecedented [for pyroCBs]... we've seen multiple pyroCBs developing on the same day over individual fires," she said.
In past fire seasons, these incidents were "rare and unique", said NSW RFS manager of the planning and predictive services unit Simon Heemstra.
But this season,  there has been a "phenomenal increase" in pyroCB events.
Dr Heemstra said one of the dangers of pyroCB events is the long-range spotting of fires up to 30 kilometres away from the main fire front.
Photographs show spot fires breaking ahead of the Clear Range Fire along the Monaro Highway on February 1. Credit: Dean Sewell
Other dangers include fire tornadoes, downbursts of air causing the fire to hit the ground and burst outwards and lightning which can cause new fires up to 60 kilometres away.
"Some days, state operations issued five or six alerts for different fires around the state because of pyrocumulus columns. [PyroCB] are a big concern. We'll be seeing more and more as a feature for the future," Dr Heemstra said.
Scientists note climate change will alter ground-level weather and the upper atmosphere, making conditions more conducive to pyroCBs. This risk highlights the need for more predictive modelling and tools.
At the moment, predicting where pyroCBs will hit is difficult, with the RFS erring on the side of caution as the consequences are too severe if something goes wrong.
The Herald's chief photographer Nick Moir, who has spent the last few months documenting the bushfires and their devastation, said he has been close to several pyroCB events this season, including a run-in at the Gospers Mountain fire.
Over this fire season, NSW experienced several pyroCB events, including during the Gospers Mountain fire. Credit: Nick Moir
"I was underneath it when it went pyrocumulonimbus, there was rain, hail and lightning all around the area. I was in a burnt-out area so I was safe, but there were strong winds, and, in particular, lightning ahead of the actual fire front and the storm," he said.
Former Tasmanian fire chief Mike Brown spent 39 years fighting fires and has only seen one pyroCB which was in the 2013 Dunalley fire, east of Hobart.
"It created strong winds and severe updraft, we had an aircraft working on that fire and they reported they had the worst turbulence they had ever experienced," he said.
"You’re organising tactics according to winds going a certain direction, but then suddenly [when the pyroCB occurs] there are unpredictable winds and weather patterns that are causing unpredictable and extreme fire weather conditions."
Mr Brown said at the time fire crews noticed burning material and embers being carried up high into the sky. Following the fire, they noticed scorched birds all along the beaches and believe they were burnt to death when the embers caught them unawares.
While this fire season has been marked by devastation, it provides a unique opportunity for scientists around the world to learn more about pyroCB events: what causes them, the safety risks associated with them and what they mean for the future of firefighting.

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