Global Warming and Snow Cover in Australia
I don’t mean to be the gloom-bringer, but did anyone see this report just released by the Aus Government Dept of Climate Change?
They are predicting some scary stuff for us snow-lovers. By 2050 they’re predicting for the alps:
* warmer by 0.9 to 2.6 degrees
* 24% less precipitation
* more droughts
* snow cover declining by 15 “metre days” (days at 1m+) per decade
* more rain less snow
* areas sustaining snow for more than 60 days shrinking by 96%
There was an article in The Australian newspaper on the weekend about it, and a lot people posted comments online claiming this climate science stuff was all nonsense. What do you guys reckon?
I have been considering buying a share in a lodge at Hotham, but this stuff makes me wonder if that’s such a great idea.
Mud
Its hard to tell as there are a few different predictions, but nearly all of the of the predictions are for weather patterns to become more erratic/extreme. Which in the case of the snowy mountains may result in the weather in general being warmer but possibly storms being bigger and more intense. maybe resulting in bigger dumps of POW ...but ones that melt faster in the hotter weather between?
Pfffffft! That report may as well have been written on toilet paper.
The Aus Government Dept of Climate Change also predicted massive rises in sea levels - right before Kevin Rudd bought a multi-million dollar waterfront property.
Not more of this mindless drivel written by people whose very livelihood depends upon the existence of climate change or more accurately “global warming”.
I mean seriously our plane tis in a state of flux and is never the same, the climate is always changing, it’s like the “wet ocean” effect, of course the farken ocean is wet just like the climate is changing and has done so since long before we came about. The amount of carbon dioxide we produce as humans is tiny compared to naturally occurring levels. I am far more worried about the chemical and heavy metal waste that is being churned into our rivers and oceans than I am about global warming.
The snow levels will continue to fluctuate year on year as they have done since anyone started to care about them. The global warming crew and their sensationalist and scaremongering tactics really get to me. Not only are they spouting theories as solid scientific fact they have given the govt one more way to tax the bejesus out of everyone and for what? Australia contributes an infinitessimal amount of the worlds carbon dioxide yet we are sposed to lead the way? Get farked.
By the way, by the definition of the word fact, how you can state that something that will take place in the future is factual is beyond me.
If you hadn’t guessed from my reading and knowledge that I have gained on the subject I just don’t believe it to be true. There really is just far too much about this planet and the way it works for us to begin to understand the correlations, causes and effects of why things change. Apart from that there is just way too much money involved in the cause for me to believe that the “science” is not horribly corrupted.
In short, wait another year or so until they have brought out a report about how global warming has accelerated because we haven’t been taxed 98% of our income in Carbon Tax and the snow will be gone in 2020 instead. Then buy your apartment the following year at a heavily reduced price as the muppets that buy into that sh1t panic sell what is “most certainly” in their minds, a doomed asset.
^ Word.
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Someone extremely learned and knowledgeable on this topic once explained the carbon dioxide problem thusly:
The earth of course as we all know has a natural ability to get rid of carbon dioxide that builds up through natural means in the atmosphere. You can imagine it like a bath. Carbon dioxide flows into the bath (the tap) and then is removed naturally (out the plug hole). For ease of explanation, lets compare it to a flow rate of 1 litre per minute comes out of the tap and 1 litre per minute can flow out the plug hole. The effect that humans have is that we increase the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, even if it is by minute amounts (say make it 1.1 litres per minute or even less if you prefer) and the ability to absorb the carbon dioxide (the size of the plug hole) stays the same. By adding the human induced element, a build up starts to occur in the bath over time, as it is being filled faster than it is able to empty itself.
That is why we need to do something about carbon emissions. That build up of carbon in the atmosphere can and does have an effect on the climate, there is plenty of highly credible science to show this…its just a matter of how GREAT an effect it can and will have, depending on what you read. There is definitely scaremongering going on in this regard, but the basics behind it are pretty irrefutable.
Even if Australia’s contribution to this problem is quite small, I believe that it would be amazing in 50 years time to say that we were one of the first countries to do something about it (in the form of a carbon tax transitioning over the next few years into a full blown emissions trading scheme) and other countries will follow. That is something that would make me proud of this country, more than any sporting hero or other crap (and I love sport!)
I am well prepared to pay whatever the minimal amount will be in which it actually affects us. If you want to talk about scaremongering, then listen to some people on this topic - it was the same with the GST was introduced and that scary new tax affected us in no noticeable fashion.
My 2 cents.
A little perspective on the “scale” of the Australian Labor/Green alliance’s carbon tax:
Imagine the Earth’s atmosphere is 1 kilometre deep: 770 metres of that would be Nitrogen; 210 metres would be oxygen; 10 metres would be water vapour; 9 metres would be argon; 62 centimetres would be a few more assorted gases; and only the very last 38 centimetres of the kilometre would be carbon dioxide.
97 percent of this carbon dioxide is actually produced naturally - so of that 38 centimetre portion of our theoretical 1 kilometre deep atmosphere, the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity pumps into the atmosphere is only 11.4 millimetres. Of those 11.4 millimetres globally, Australia’s relative contribution comes in at a minuscule 0.18 of a millimetre (less than the thickness of a human hair).
Regardless of the massive cost involved, the reduction in this carbon contribution the Australian Labor/Green alliance’s carbon tax might possibly achieve, if any, is a minor fraction of that figure - and even then, there’s no guarantee whatsoever such a reduction will actually make any difference at all to the Earth’s perpetually fluctuating temperature. Nor is there ANY guarantee whatsoever that Australia’s massively expensive “gesture” will do anything at all to encourage other nations to join their folly - no, they also want us to take that one on “faith”.
Hmmmmmmm, not looking too pretty in terms of (MASSIVE) cost vs. benefit. . .
I have been heading to the Mount Hotham for 20 years now.
Over that time I have watched the snow level get higher. There have been years of course where it has been better.
I would like to think that what I have ben watching is just a glitch (I really do hope) but my gut feeling is that they are not bullshitting us (whoever ‘they’ are)
I know that the climate changes over time, I have witnessed that in the time i have been alive. For someone to put a timeline on when we will see no snow in Australia, I believe to be foolish. There are so many variables, how can anyone predict how or why this would happen?
One of the authors of this report was on ABC radio earlier this week, he said that 2050 was his worst case scenario, he did not give a real timeline on when this may or may not happen. The gentleman (sadly can’t remember his name, but shall try to find out) was certainly not an alarmist.
The report is based on what has been happening for the last few decades and using this information to predict what could happen in the future.
Time is the only thing that will show us what is going to happen, in the mean time, lets enjoy what we have now.
I don’t know about anyone else, but if I am still riding in 2050 at the ripe old age of 77, I’ll be more than stoked 
Isn’t it the case, that even if we could magically conjure up some actual benefit from the carbon tax, there wouldn’t be any flow on effect for around 1000 years?
Didn’t we already do this thread? Pretty sure me and NthBeaches had a good long fencing match on this!
but anyways
I’m not a climate scientist, so I don’t have any expertise in the area. I just tend to trust the large majority of scientists saying that
humans are having an impact on the climate, over the large oil/gas/mining companies trying to swing the public perception to their side.
corruption by scientists…..maybe by some. But the vested interests are all on the side of the companies making huge profits and the big money on this issue is coming from those companies making the money out of carbon intensive industries, yet they still struggle to find many reputable scientists to back them.
Besides, a lot of reductions that could achieved in carbon emissions are associated with things like coal power and come with the bonus of a reduction in other air borne pollution, that irrespective of climate changing ability, isn’t good for your health.
and yet…the carbon tax seems like an excuse for business as usual to me.
I am well prepared to pay whatever the minimal amount will be in which it actually affects us. If you want to talk about scaremongering, then listen to some people on this topic - it was the same with the GST was introduced and that scary new tax affected us in no noticeable fashion.
My 2 cents.
Carbon tax is irrelevant… Howards/Rudds carbon price is the real question.
I’m well prepared to pay a tax but I don’t trust that it will work.
on a fun filled stats note
Australian are the 11th highest per Capita carbon emitters (and the 50th biggest population)
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/air_co2_emissions.htm
Our total emissions are 392 mio. tonnes
China is the biggest emitter in the world at 6538 mio. tonnes
United states 6 094.39 mio. tonnes
total 30 113.91 mio. tonnes
Basically if anything is to change the United States and China would have to be involved in the long run for it to work.
Yet the Chinese emit 4.2 tonnes per person. whether you could really expect them to change their ways first, especially as their standard of living is so far below ours, is another thing. Its a bit rich to expect them to roll back their standard of living while we decide which plasma tv to watch the cricket on.
its a natural warming/cooling cycle of the earth.
I’m not a climate scientist, so I don’t have any expertise in the area. I just tend to trust the large majority of scientists saying that humans are having an impact on the climate. . .
I think it’d be naive not to accept that humans have an impact on the planet - but how much of that is climate-related is highly debatable.
. . . over the large oil/gas/mining companies trying to swing the public perception to their side.
There’s just as much, if not more, of that being forced on the public by the other side.
But the vested interests are all on the side of the companies making huge profits and the big money on this issue is coming from those companies making the money out of carbon intensive industries. . .
Not even close. There’s PLENTY of vested interests on the part of governments, renewable energy companies, carbon traders etc.
. . . yet they still struggle to find many reputable scientists to back them.
It’s a struggle to find relevant/reputable scientists not receiving funding from government agencies.
. . . and yet…the carbon tax seems like an excuse for business as usual to me.
Yup.
Want the really bad, distasteful news?
Anyone who’s sat through that asinine propaganda-fest known as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” would have to be blind not to see the HUGE elephant in the room. Fond as Al Gore is for graphs that “fit together”, there was one glaringly obvious correlation which nevertheless was largely ignored - as the world’s population has increased, so has the amount of CO2 we collectively pump into the atmosphere. So surely, if we’re taking all possible steps to mitigate AGW, we must endeavour to reverse the Earth’s population increase? From the perspective of Australia’s contribution to the perceived AGW problem, that should mean no more ‘baby bonus’, no more ‘paid parental leave’, no more immigration, and no more foreign aid to impoverished nations (basically allowing nature to take its course by letting them die out). Hmmmmmm, not exactly politically correct, is it? However any AGW alarmist not addressing this fundamental point is a fraudulent hypocrite.
there’s been a bit of discussion around the traps on the impact of solar flare activity. Some people reckon it has more to do with climate change than CO2. I even saw one report that said there’s going to be a peak in solar flare activity in 2013, and the last time something like that happened we went into a mini ice-age for 70 years! I also wonder if trends over the past 10 years or so have been skewed by the massive drought we’ve just come out of. Sure, the drought might be a result of climate change in which case the trending is fair, but if it’s just a natural drought cycle, might that not be affecting averages?