The talk at Merimbula RSL club on 20th July, 2009 was attended by about 60 people.

The graphs were not properly explained – this led to considerable confusion about exactly what they were displaying. Rob was not able to point to particular parts of the graphs during his explanations.  

Minister Wong in her reply to Sen Fielding included reference to random effects and that we should expect some periods of cooling within the predicted long term warming trend. Rob tried to show what would happen to average global temperature if the current variation – a “temp dip” had taken place 30 year’s earlier. This failed completely and was abandoned.

Otherwise the talk went reasonably well and most attendees seemed satisfied.

Questions and answers were not formally recorded – the following notes highlight some of the issues discussed – any participant who is unhappy with this section is invited to email a detailed question which we will answer via this website. These notes need to be read in conjunction with the talk.

Question 1
Mature rainforests don’t produce oxygen, even though each growing tree does, because the decomposition and rotting of a tree consumes all of the oxygen it produced once it dies. The natural storage of carbon underground was cited as contradicting this statement.

Answer 1
This is true of a young forest but not of an old mature forest. In general, the rate of decomposition of organic matter in the warm tropics is very high, peat and coal generally form in colder moist forest systems.

Question 2
A new coal plant is being built by GE for Duke Energy and includes gasification and “Clean Coal”, this will cut CO2 emissions by 30%.  

Answer 2
Efficiency of IGCC – Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle – with a gas turbine can increase the efficiency of a coal power station from around 35% to 45% but no plant in the world is being built incorporating “Clean Coal” which would reduce CO2 by nearly 100% not just 30% – it is cheaper just to throw the CO2 into the air – no power station will install Clean Coal unless forced to.

Additional answer after checking on internet – Duke Energy has announced plans for GE to build a new IGCC plant at their old Edwardsford power station, the plant to include scope to add “Clean Coal” at a later date, government subsidies have been applied for. Status not clear – is the IGCC plant merely a proposed or is it being built?    Note that an increase in efficiency from 35% to 45% gives a 30% reduction in coal required for a given, 600MW output, and hence a 30% reduction in CO2 GHG emissions per kWhr of electricity produced. (Note – If building a new power station with “Clean Coal” it is cheaper to use an IGCC power system because it produces a more concentrated exhaust that makes it easier and cheaper to extract the CO2.) The basic cost of an IGCC plant is higher than for a standard steam only power station.  

Question 3
Has a recent change in earth’s magnetic field or orbit around the sun caused GW? 

Answer 3
No. Although cause of reversals of magnetic field are unknown there has been no recent reversal, magnetic field has no known direct effect on climate. Changes in orbit have a big effect on climate, these changes are well understood and known as Malenkovich cycles.

Question 4
Is water a GHG?   

Answer 4
Yes, a stronger GHG than CO2 but so complicated by variation in water over oceans and deserts, recent rain, droplets in clouds etc that it is usually ignored. The UN claim that CO2 GHG effect is amplified by a resultant higher water content in upper troposphere which gives a positive “feedback” or “multiplier” – skeptics maintain there is no such feedback.

Question 5
What is Maunder Minimum?   

Answer 5
Maunder discovered that there had been a 100 year period with very few sunspots preceding the 15th C Little Ice Age. Sunspots are caused by magnetic storms on the sun (first observed by Gallilleo, causing consternation because celestial bodies, like the sun and stars, were presumed to be perfect and could not possibly have such defects). Sunspots do not indicate a significant change in solar radiance but are now known to cause significant changes in the intensity of the solar magnetic field which might influence the shielding of the earth from cosmic rays. The UN has dismissed changes in solar radiance as a possible factor in GW but skeptics cite sunspots and cosmic ray incidence as possible factors. Increased solar magnetic field strength (as has been happening in last 100 years) would reduce incoming cosmic rays, which fragment dust and other atmospheric particles which in turn act as nucleation centres for cloud formation, less clouds means less reflection of solar radiation and hence higher temperatures. Current low incidence of sunspots may be causing Global Cooling, this leads to tentative prediction of further drop in Average Global Temperature through 2010 as opposed to UN predicted GW.

Question 6
If CO2 is not causing GW, what is?   

Answer 6
Skeptics do not know enough about climate system to know – they – we – don’t think there is enough evidence to blame mmCO2 as the UN does.

Question 7
Can we really claim that we have global cooling based on just a few years of lower temperature?  

Answer 7
A few years is not long enough to establish a climate trend but it is long enough to test the UN’s mmGW hypothesis. Skeptics are not claiming that we are entering a period of global cooling – but we are only disputing the UN claim for mmGW and their prediction of rapidly increasing temperatures which are not happening. Skeptics maintain that, based on recent lack of sunspots, cooling is probably more likely than warming – but we don’t know enough to make a prediction.

Question 8
The UN – Hadley UK Met Office says that their data shows warming and many of last few years have been hottest on record.   

Answer 8
Their own graphs now show some drop – cooling. It is inevitable that the hottest years be at the end of a long term uptrend. Skeptics contend that temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period must have been higher than now – even though there are no thermometer records.

New Question
What would it take to convince UN that their theory is wrong and that temperature is not increasing in line with CO2 levels???