Understanding Climate Risk

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Archive for July 6th, 2012

A more intense global water cycle

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Been meaning to post on Paul Durack, Susan Wijfells and Richard Matear’s work on the intensification of the global water cycle using changing ocean salinity, but Paul has written a great article for The Conversation (reproduced below). Paul and I used to give each other grief when we were both at CSIRO, so for light relief he went and did a Ph D, doing this great work in the process.

The work cracked Science magazine (full article behind paywall) and has been featured on Real Climate. It has also attracted a rejoinder in correspondence by Roderick and colleagues who maintain that the evidence of an intensified rainfall response on land is not there (all of which is behind a paywall). I reckon they’re wrong and there is growing evidence that the models are understating hydrological sensitivity. This means that droughts and floods are changing faster than projected by the models. Furthermore, I think these changes are strongly non linear as has been observed in south-eastern Australia – something that Paul is a bit dubious about (for the moment!). Anyhow, from the man himself, read on … Read the rest of this entry »

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Written by Roger Jones

July 6, 2012 at 8:17 am

LaRaspberry in Oz

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Got a call from Rob Gell because he’s co-host in the conversation hour on the Jon Faine morning show on ABC774 Melbourne radio, today July 6 at 11 am EAST. The conversation hour usually has two guests – the guest in question? Donna Laframboise, denialista and author of  the book The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert. It is the real story behind the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Apparently the selection of a few lead authors who are not hoary old farts who have gone emeritus, disqualifies the IPCC from saying anything useful.

Preferred IPCC author by those who deny the IPCC is of any use – no young scientists here, thankyou!

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Written by Roger Jones

July 6, 2012 at 12:22 am