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The Bullroarer - Thursday 13th May 2010
Posted by aeldric on May 12, 2010 - 9:19pm in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
ABC - The peak of oil production is passed
Dr Michael Lardelli from the University of Adelaide looks at how the bulk of the world's oil production comes from a relatively small number of very large fields discovered decades ago. The rate of world oil production has been maintained at current levels only by finding and bringing on line an increasing number of smaller fields, but the financial cost and the energy required to find and develop these new fields is constantly increasing. According to Dr Lardelli the so-called peak of oil production was actually in 2008.
Otago Daily Times - How Dunedin can become prosperous, sustainable and interesting
As the effects of climate change, peak oil and international financial instability start to bite harder, more and more people will be seriously thinking about relocating.
For example, I expect see more old Waihekeans here, especially if Dunedin becomes the leading sustainable city in New Zealand. A sustainable city is just the sort of thing that many of the alternative lifestylers from thirty years ago, now many of them very property-rich, would really like
ABC - Time to plan for peak oil crunch
The world may be basking in the warm glow of economic recovery, but some observers are warning of an unseen spectre, lurking in the background.
Indymedia - Environmental and anti-globalisation activist awarded Sydney Peace Prize
Vandana Shiva's latest book from 2008 - Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis - deals with the global crises of food insecurity, peak oil, and climate change and why any attempt to solve one without addressing the others will get us nowhere. Industrial biofuels and agriculture are condemned as recipes for ecological and economic disaster, while the small independent farm is championed instead.
Scoop.co.nz - Soils hold the key
"The world is experiencing unprecedented pressures from peak oil, water, climate and health," comments Nicole Masters, chair of Earth Food Inc "and the way we manage our soils holds a vital key in addressing these issues". By managing agricultural soils in order to sequester and store atmospheric CO2 in the form of stable humus has major implications for soil structure, water-holding capacity and nutrient status. "Christine has shown that soils have the capacity to store much more carbon than trees, and the way we have been managing our soils has been a contributor to atmospheric carbon and water vapour levels."
SMH - Planners lack power and government leadership
A recent nationwide survey shows 75 per cent of us would accept higher density housing to preserve wilderness, but even here Ekelund equivocated, saying "it could be good or bad".
Peak oil, she conceded, is pretty much upon us. But as she also noted, this is an election year. Nobody move.
Radio NZ - Tax prompts Rio Tinto to review Australian projects
Rio Tinto is to review all new capital projects in Australia in response to the government's proposed super tax on mining companies.
SMH - Congestion to continue: RACQ
Senator Milne said the recommendations taken up by the federal government reflected its political priorities.
"How is the whole-of-government approach to climate change and peak oil served by providing billions for new coal ports and coal railways?" Senator Milne asked.
"This tax review was the opportunity to redesign our cities for people rather than cars and to remove the billions of dollars of subsidies to fossil fuel industries through fuel tax credits."
NZ Herald - Catching Australia just got easier, says fund manager
Australian tax policy just made it easier for New Zealand to catch the "lucky country", says Harbour Asset Management managing director, Andrew Bascand.
In a note to clients this week, the respected fund manager says the sudden shift in Australian policy makes "many investment opportunities in New Zealand look promising relative to those in Australia" and recommends going under-weight in Australian mining and bank stocks as a consequence.
NZ Herald - Enough is enough, say climate scientists
A group of climate change scientists who are convinced mankind is slowly destroying the Earth have written an impassioned plea to be taken seriously.
North Queensland Register - Food security threat worse than climate
Last week, Professor Cribb, who has won 32 awards for journalism, made a final plea with the release of his book “The coming famine: the global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it”.
[....]
In Prof Cribbs' view, the world is running out of time to respond.
“Though nobody has done any accurate assessment, it appears the world may currently be losing about one per cent (50,000 square kilometres) of farmland annually – due to a combination of degradation, urban sprawl, mining, recreation, toxic pollution and rising sea levels,” he said.
“If we’ve already lost 24pc and we lose around 1pc a year from here on, you can figure out for yourself how much land our grandchildren will have left to double their food supply.”
According to the International Energy Agency peak oil and gas are due to come in the coming decade, and the phosphorus peak was passed in 1989.
NZ Herald - Electric train cost tipped to be shock for Auckland
Aucklanders could be paying 80 per cent more for rail services after the arrival of electric trains, regional councillors were warned yesterday.
The Australian - I still want climate action: Kevin Rudd
Pressed by ABC 7.30 Report host Kerry O'Brien last night on why he had abandoned his climate change campaign, the Prime Minister said the Liberal Party had backflipped and voted down his emissions trading scheme legislation: "That is the reality we had to confront.
The Australian - Mining delays 'not all bad': Treasury
WAYNE Swan's new $12 billion tax on mining profits is overshadowing his budget as miners bitterly reject Treasury's belief there is a potential upside for the Australian economy if some resources projects stall or investment goes overseas.
The Australian - CSIRO should establish if there was medieval warming Down-Under
A touchstone in the debate on causes of global warming is the record of global temperatures of past millennia. Most who follow this debate are familiar with the cooling from the 16th to 18th centuries known as the Little Ice Age; this is generally accepted as a global phenomenon. Most are also aware of the Medieval Warm Period covering much of the 9th to 15th centuries. This has been the source of greater debate because, while it is clear in anecdotal descriptions from Europe, such as Vikings growing crops in Greenland, it is less clear whether it is a global phenomenon. The debate has high stakes because the rate of warming and temperatures attained in Europe during the MWP are of similar order to the warming of past decades. If the MWP were to be proven to be global, then the basis of present science stating that industrial-era carbon emissions are the dominant cause of today's warming would be significantly undermined.
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And if it were shown that lung cancer existed in Europe before tobacco arrived, then the basis of present science stating that tobacco smoking is the dominant cause of today's lung cancer would be significantly undermined.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the existence of natural processes does not change the fact that man-made processes can be more significant.
Morons.
Its amazing how many people fall for this "because there are natural climate cycles it is impossible for pollution to influence climate as well" line of propaganda.
You should call them "gullible morons".
Of course, they could just say "it snowed in europe this winter - global warming - hah !" - it works just as well.
I think you don't understand the debate going on there.
First, the rate of warming seen in the second half of the XXth century (1970-2000) is not unprecedented, it already happened twice according to instrumental records (1850-1880 and 1910-1940). Rates were always about 0.15/0.16°C.
Note by the way the very obvious 30yr cycle. This is easily seen on any instrumental record graph and was confirmed by Phil Jones in an interview.
Second, is the level of warming unprecedented (on reasonable timescale of course) ?
Now you often hear that x out the ten last years were the warmest on record. That statement is flawed from a statistical point a view as it doesn't account for autocorrelation.
It's like if i were to tell you that 2009 was the second highest world GDP on record would mean that there has been no global economic crisis.
Well if there is a MWP, then no, it is not unprecedented and it has already happened about 1,000yrs ago (which, by the way, could indicate a 1,000yr cycle).
Anyway, back to your statement :
""because there are natural climate cycles it is impossible for pollution to influence climate as well" line of propaganda."
We do know that adding CO2 to an atmosphere in an idealized environment makes surface temperature go up. We know it goes logarithmically so it levels off pretty quickly (about 1.5°C per CO2 doubling so the first 1.5°C is easy to get, the second one a lot more difficult as the second doubling is a multiplication by 4 of the initial concentration).
The thing is : what happens in a complex system where you have oceans and clouds ? That's a totally different story. In the IPCC report, overall feedback effects vastly increase the warming effect of the CO2. To phrase it differently, most of the warming predicted by the IPCC comes from the feedbacks and not from the CO2 itself.
How well do we know those feedbacks ? Not so well... actually we know them very badly !
To give you and idea : warming from CO2 can lead to more evaporation which means more cloud... but whether you have low cloud or high clouds, the feedback has a different sign (and cloud influence is order of magnitudes greater than CO2).
You should read Judith Curry (famous senior climatologist).
She recently said this on RealClimate :
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/04/second-cru-inquiry...
"During the period Feb 2007 – Nov 2009, when I gave a presentation on climate change I would say “don’t believe what one scientist says, listen to what the IPCC has to say” and then went on to defend the IPCC process and recite the IPCC conclusions. I am no longer substituting the IPCC’s judgment for my own judgment on this matter"
And in a more interview :
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/23/an-inconvenient-provocateur/
"What are some of those issues?
To keep this short, I will only itemize some topics where I think the confidence levels in the IPCC are too high and uncertainties have been inadequately characterized: much of what is in the IPCC WG2 report (impacts), the 20th century external climate forcings, the historical surface temperature record prior to 1960, attribution of the 20th century climate variations (including the role of the multidecadal ocean oscillations), the impacts of land use change, sea level rise, paleoclimate reconstructions, uncertainties of climate models and lack of metrics for evaluating climate model performance. "
You should also read Roger Pielke Sr (atmospheric science) blog for example.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/update-to-andy-revkins-...
But you should read his other blog entries, you'ld learn a lot of stuff.
I don't think what you say is what is being argued in the original article at all.
They simply argue they believe there was an MWP, and this invalidates AGW theory.
Which is nonsense.
I dont quiet get the point here.
Feedback doesn't occur without the initial stimulus.
This is my feedback analogy.
Starting with the fact that the amount of energy coming from the sun is essentially constant (i.e. small variations)
What we are doing is like sitting in an auditorium with a constant background sound level... up on the stage is an open mike pointing at a speaker. Anthropogenic CO2 additions are equivalent to increasing the size of the mike until it captures enough sound energy that the speaker shrieks. Feedback. But if we make the mike smaller again, or cover it up the shrieking sound goes away.
There is almost no way that we can affect the water balance of the atmosphere.
We can influence our CO2.
"I dont quiet get the point here.
Feedback doesn't occur without the initial stimulus."
Yes, but the thing is the "feedbacks" are much less known than the effect of initial stimulus (CO2 in ideal atmosphere => warming) even though in IPCC they are the dominant effect (with only CO2 you can reach about +2°C compared to the +2/+6°C scenario range of IPCC).
And feedbacks can :
* go against the effect of the initial stimulus.
* don't have any effect overall.
* increase the initial stimulus (which is the case in IPCC scenarios).
Feedbacks can lead to less warming of even cooling (if bigger effect and different sign than initial stimulus).
For example : increase of CO2 > warming > more ocean evaporation > more low cloud cover
Then the overall effect could even be a cooling ; again this is just to give an example of a negative feedback, i'm not saying this is what's happening.
For example you can read :
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/new-article-is-there-a-...
Less well known does not equal "unknown" and is kind of like a lawyers argument to redirect to another suspect thus causing doubt.
What you are attempting to argue is that increased water vapour in the sky will - because of reflection due to increased cloud cover - lead to cooling.
Well here in Tassie, in the middle of winter one thing is certain, on still non rainy nights, a cloudy night is warmer than a night with a clear sky.
Also, the tropics have two seasons, wet and cloudy and dry and clear. And, I speak from personal experience, they are both bloody hot! And getting warmer.
If you can point to actual data showing that the tropics are getting cooler as CO2 increases - I might listen.
Nope, I'm saying the sign of feedback depends on whether the clouds formed are low clouds or high clouds. That's well known. What's much less known is whether we will have more low or high clouds (therefore what the overall feedback will be).
You're oversimplifying my point : if more water vapor meant cooling, things would be (a little) easier. But no, it's not any simpler : models have to predict accurately if in 100 years the cloud cover will increase or decrease, and if the increase or decrease will be mainly in high or low clouds.
Low clouds have a net cooling effect, whether high cloud have a warming effect.
I mean just read the scientific literature, or even the full IPCC report (yes, the big one not the summary), it does contain clues on major problems they are facing :
TAR = third assessment report
So, how do we assess confidence in their simulated feedbacks ? Well, they say they have developed some tests but haven't used them against their models !
In other words, feedback parameters used in global climate models are at best just based on some guessed estimate and not on physics or observation, they have never been tested !
And keep in mind that the "amount" of global warming depends mainly on feedbacks (you don't get much warming with CO2 alone as it goes logarithmically).
That's just one example of the complexity of climatology (what about the missing heat in the ocean ? the mismatch with outgoing longwave radiations ? ), and that's why i'm saying uncertainties are too low in the IPCC report.
"Getting warmer" is funny.
South hemisphere is where you get the less warming, and even assuming you were 70yo you would have experienced a few tenth of a degree Celsius of warming. If you felt it, you're good ! Daily variations are way greater than that, and your parents would have experienced exactly the same warming as you.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20MAATand3yrAverage%20SH%20No...
For your place you can use this website :
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/weather-data.shtml
For example at Hobart (Ellerslie Road 094029) :
Mean maximum temperature (°C) for years 1981 to 2010
Annual : 17.3°C
Mean maximum temperature (°C) for years 1881 to 1910
Annual : 16.8°C
+.5°C increase of the mean maximum temperature in 100years.... wow ! :)
Do you live in a town ?
What are you talking about ?
Maybe you can read this on climate and clouds :
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm
Your statement
is not consistent with the section of AR4 that you quote.
They say
You imply few and none. They claim more than a few (i.e. a number) but that only a few have been applied to most of the models. The goal is to further "narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks". This is completely at odds with your claim that they are just guessing.
For starters, you can't use 1881, 1882, 1892 from this data set as there are months missing. 1881 only has data for 4 months. AND how can you use 2010 data? We aren't even half way through the year.
I calculated the following differences (1883 - 1903 excl.1892) and (1989 - 2009)
Mean Max
Annual Summer Winter
0.477 0.282 0.877
BUT why only look at the max?
Mean Min
Annual Summer Winter
0.833 0.952 0.611
This tells me that the top temperature in summer has increased less than the maximum achieved in winter.
Conversely the minimums have risen faster. Your calculation minimizes the effect. Just as the greatest warming is occurring at the north and south poles the greatest increase in temperature has been in winter.
If, as you say, low clouds have a net cooling effect, and the site you direct us to is reliable then what is happening to cloud cover. From http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm
Which shows that total cloud cover has decreased.
And what about the ratio between high and low clouds?
Less low level clouds (i.e. less cooling effect, more middle level clouds)
And the tropics?
Slight decrease in low level cloud cover. Temperature increasing.
I apologize for being incorrect about my assumption that more water vapour automatically increased low level cloud cover. And also for this simplistic statement "dry and clear". As I can really only speak about one location.
Thank you for the link.
Do you really think that this is insignificant?
Climate change fundamentalist morons are just as bad as climate change denying fundamentalist morons. Neither are helpful to advancing the science and the Australian may just have a point. If what they are demanding is more research then that has got to be a good thing. It is inexcusable however to use that as an excuse to keep driving toward the cliff.
I think the analys on "peak phosphorus" is flawed, people seem to forget the collapse of the Soviet Union...
Errr - you think the two were related in some way ?
Was the USSR a major phosphorus producer (or importer) whose collapse somehow impacted production ?
That said, I think fears of PP are overblown...
Just look here p14 :
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/540494.pdf
USSR 1990 : 36 000
USSR 1991 : 28 000
Russia + former USSR (Kazakhstan) 1992 : 11 500 + 7 000 = 18 500
Russia + former USSR (Kazakhstan) 1993 : 9 400 + 4 000 = 13 400
Russia + former USSR (Kazakhstan) 1994 : 8 000 + 3 000 = 11 400
That's already 25 000 loss out of the 38 000 loss in production over the same period (i.e two third).
The other downtrends (accounting for 11,00 of the missing 13 000) are
Morocco (from 21 400 to 18 000 but now back up at 25 000).
Jordan (from 6 000 to 3 000 but now back up at 6 000).
USA (46 300 to 41 100 and now still down at 30 000).
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/phospmcs...
Morocco and Chine (more than half of the reserves) are still on an upward trend.
I'm not saying that a peak isn't gonna happen in the next decades, but it definitely didn't happen in the late 80'/early 90's as shown here :
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/33164
You should check out this analysis instead :
http://phosphorusfutures.net/peak-phosphorus
Cheers.
Possibly... but...
P is THE limiting nutrient of the 2 major nutrients (i.e. Nitrogen and Phosphorus).
Although we are currently fixing as much N as the rest of the biosphere thanks to Haber and Bosch... at worst we might (just might) be able to get by using biological means of N fixation as we run out of natural gas.
In Oz the first nutrient that we put on our farms was P as Super Phosphate. Oz is a low P environment.
We helped strip mine Narua. For N we used clover. In more recent times we have started to use more N.
Both N and P require fossil fuels for creation/extraction... so peak P and peak N are going to be related to peak oil. When oil and gas prices went up ~2 years ago so did fertilizer and so did food.
We are going to have to attempt an at least partial closure of the nutrient cycle between our farms, towns and cities.
re: 'Time to plan for Peak Oil crunch'
" The University of South Australia's Dr Vlado Vivoda also says a crunch can be avoided.
"What peak oil theorists miss out on is the fact that with improvements in our technologies and improvements in a drop in oil production costs what it is considered oil is changing," he said.
"I see the definition changing of what is exploitable oil [and] changes in levels in technological efficiency and with the changes in the exploration or the production of oil." "
A couple of questions for Dr Vivoda:
1/. In what way do his comments about technological improvements invalidate the Peak Oil Theory?
2/.If production costs of oil are dropping, and the supply is so plentiful, why is the price of oil so high?
3/. Why would the 'definition' of what is 'exploitable oil' be changing if the availability of traditional oil was not being squeezed? ( hint hint: around in a circle back to Peak Oil theory)
Disaster! (The Peter Garrett touch again...)
$5m Port Kembla wave generator wrecked