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Hot to trot
Dec. 11th, 2006 06:13 pmWe've all heard about climate change. One thing that's hard for me to adjust to in Australia is the climate. Canberra has a huge temperature variation over the course of a year, but it's getting hotter. Being a New Zealander, if you're not a farmer, it's easy to be complacent about climate change (although I don't personally know any kiwis who are complacent, since we love our country so much), whereas here in Australia, the marginality of human civilisation on this continent feels more acute every day. It's in your face.
I went to see An Inconvenient Truth a couple of weekends back. It was interesting enough, stuff we know, yadda yadda, but for me, it was noteworthy for two things. One, if Al Gore's prestige makes the complacent tossers in certain large industrialised countries wake up and get their heads out of the sand, great. Forgive my cynicism in saying that big business won't make enough changes fast enough until they are made to do so. We'll see if people start putting their money where their mouths are, and, more importantly in the short term, if certain governments do as well.
Secondly, I was shocked by the graph representing the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the last few years. Follow the link to look at a version of that graph. It shows the cycle of CO2 levels found in Antarctic ice cores, going back a few ice ages. It also shows the trend for temperatures over that time, which you can see is closely associated with the rise or fall of CO2 - all well and good. What shocked me however, was that I'd read previously that the carbon dioxide levels had been fairly elevated compared to previous levels. Sure, 10% more, 15% more? Whatever. Silly me. Check out the graph again. See the red line heading up vertically at the far right of the graph? How about a concentration of CO2 nearly 50% more than it's ever been? The graph shows long cycles between the ice ages and warmer periods, with carbon dioxide ranging between 180 ppm (ice age) to 280 ppm. This is over 400,000 years. Since the modern age, that amount has gone up to 360 ppm. If we translate to the associated rise in temperature that has always gone with the rise in carbon dioxide levels in the past, the picture is not a pretty one. Ok, most of us knew that, but I seriously didn't realise it was so bad.
On to the personal. Canberra is arid, and it's not weather that works for me, at all. The last time it rained in Canberra was nearly a month ago. Remember, it was spring up until the beginning of this month.
( Canberra rain graph )
November was quite wet, since it rained on 7 days, for a total of 40mm of rain. In all of October, there was 4mm of rain. In September, there was 18mm of rain, nearly half of which fell on one day, the 4th. Canberra's rainfall, for the entire year, has been 363.2mm They've just put in Stage III water restrictions, which means using a hand-held hose for watering, alternate days, during 4-hourly time slots. Why wasn't this done in October, with the piddly 4mm of rain then? Half of the rain this past year fell in two months: Jan (79mm) and June (74.4mm). How sustainable are dam levels when you have rainfall patterns like that?
If you look at the graph line with the yellow triangles showing the number of rainy days a month, you can see why it's not terribly sustainable. Even that number is somewhat misleading, since a large proportion of the days I've graphed had less than 0.2 mm of rain fall (which would pretty much evaporate when it hit the ground). On average this year, less than 5 days a month have had rain. For another disturbing trend, the pink line shows the highest rainfall on a single day in a month - see how closely the total rainfall navy line approaches that pink one. It's happening more often than not, showing that in most of the months of the year (except, again, January and June), most of the rain in that month fell on one day. In August, it all fell on one day (since the other day it rained that month, it was one of the 0.2mm jobbies).
Just for comparison purposes, the total rainfall in Los Angeles last year (you know, that place right next to a big desert) was 693mm. Since the average for LA up until the 90s was 391mm, it's obvious where the rain has gone. Heh. Wellington gets about 1700mm of rainfall a year, while London gets about 500mm. Before you think that only ducks live in Wellington, it's all in big storms which leave lots of clear days in between - and a lot more sunshine hours than London, as I can vouch.
Regarding sunshine, Canberra isn't at all short of that, given the lack of rain.
( Canberra temperature graph )
It's already hotter than this time last year, oh joy. The max and min temps refer to the hottest or coldest one day reached that month. The averages for all the days that month aren't that far behind. See the 20 degree flucutation in max and min temperatures across the year? Auckland's range is half of that, only about 9 degs over the course of a year. One certainly can't get complacent about the weather here. And I won't even start on about the 14 bushfires currently burning 234,000ha (578471 acres) of bushland around Victoria... at least a couple of months early. I suppose that by peak bushfire time, February, there won't be anything left to burn.
So, while the NZ government is considering what to do with the Tokelauan and other Pacific refugees that will be turning up on the doorstep when their islands get flooded out, they might want to think about how many Aussies are going to think "bugger this" and go somewhere that it rains. As for support on the Kiwi side of the Tasman, while several groups of firefighters are over here helping out, big business is doing its bit too. Fonterra, the dairy export board, is "looking at markets Australian companies would not be able to supply". Well, how nice. Of course, I'm wondering why on earth Australia - given the unsustainability of large pasturelands here - is farming enough dairy to export bloody low-cost milk powder, but that attitude of Kiwi farmers saying "give us higher prices now" gives me the creeps. Of course, given the latest UN report saying that cows produce more greenhouse gases than cars, we'll see just how long that attitude lasts. I'd like to see that UN statistic verified, although I note they're counting all the ground clearance, fertiliser and feed costs into that output.
Finally, in the movie, Al Gore says that hope isn't lost, and points to the progress made with the ozone hole as evidence that people can smarten their ideas up. I think this particular problem is less tractable, although I suppose improvements made might work as precipately as the problems developed. But I can't help thinking a huge part of the problem is Malthusian, and what are we going to do about that? I'll qualify that slightly. I believe we might be able to adequately feed the existing population without overburdening our resources - if we start managing them properly now - but I don't think the Earth is capable of doing so for the projected population in the next century. And certainly not if we don't make any changes.
I went to see An Inconvenient Truth a couple of weekends back. It was interesting enough, stuff we know, yadda yadda, but for me, it was noteworthy for two things. One, if Al Gore's prestige makes the complacent tossers in certain large industrialised countries wake up and get their heads out of the sand, great. Forgive my cynicism in saying that big business won't make enough changes fast enough until they are made to do so. We'll see if people start putting their money where their mouths are, and, more importantly in the short term, if certain governments do as well.
Secondly, I was shocked by the graph representing the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the last few years. Follow the link to look at a version of that graph. It shows the cycle of CO2 levels found in Antarctic ice cores, going back a few ice ages. It also shows the trend for temperatures over that time, which you can see is closely associated with the rise or fall of CO2 - all well and good. What shocked me however, was that I'd read previously that the carbon dioxide levels had been fairly elevated compared to previous levels. Sure, 10% more, 15% more? Whatever. Silly me. Check out the graph again. See the red line heading up vertically at the far right of the graph? How about a concentration of CO2 nearly 50% more than it's ever been? The graph shows long cycles between the ice ages and warmer periods, with carbon dioxide ranging between 180 ppm (ice age) to 280 ppm. This is over 400,000 years. Since the modern age, that amount has gone up to 360 ppm. If we translate to the associated rise in temperature that has always gone with the rise in carbon dioxide levels in the past, the picture is not a pretty one. Ok, most of us knew that, but I seriously didn't realise it was so bad.
On to the personal. Canberra is arid, and it's not weather that works for me, at all. The last time it rained in Canberra was nearly a month ago. Remember, it was spring up until the beginning of this month.
( Canberra rain graph )
November was quite wet, since it rained on 7 days, for a total of 40mm of rain. In all of October, there was 4mm of rain. In September, there was 18mm of rain, nearly half of which fell on one day, the 4th. Canberra's rainfall, for the entire year, has been 363.2mm They've just put in Stage III water restrictions, which means using a hand-held hose for watering, alternate days, during 4-hourly time slots. Why wasn't this done in October, with the piddly 4mm of rain then? Half of the rain this past year fell in two months: Jan (79mm) and June (74.4mm). How sustainable are dam levels when you have rainfall patterns like that?
If you look at the graph line with the yellow triangles showing the number of rainy days a month, you can see why it's not terribly sustainable. Even that number is somewhat misleading, since a large proportion of the days I've graphed had less than 0.2 mm of rain fall (which would pretty much evaporate when it hit the ground). On average this year, less than 5 days a month have had rain. For another disturbing trend, the pink line shows the highest rainfall on a single day in a month - see how closely the total rainfall navy line approaches that pink one. It's happening more often than not, showing that in most of the months of the year (except, again, January and June), most of the rain in that month fell on one day. In August, it all fell on one day (since the other day it rained that month, it was one of the 0.2mm jobbies).
Just for comparison purposes, the total rainfall in Los Angeles last year (you know, that place right next to a big desert) was 693mm. Since the average for LA up until the 90s was 391mm, it's obvious where the rain has gone. Heh. Wellington gets about 1700mm of rainfall a year, while London gets about 500mm. Before you think that only ducks live in Wellington, it's all in big storms which leave lots of clear days in between - and a lot more sunshine hours than London, as I can vouch.
Regarding sunshine, Canberra isn't at all short of that, given the lack of rain.
( Canberra temperature graph )
It's already hotter than this time last year, oh joy. The max and min temps refer to the hottest or coldest one day reached that month. The averages for all the days that month aren't that far behind. See the 20 degree flucutation in max and min temperatures across the year? Auckland's range is half of that, only about 9 degs over the course of a year. One certainly can't get complacent about the weather here. And I won't even start on about the 14 bushfires currently burning 234,000ha (578471 acres) of bushland around Victoria... at least a couple of months early. I suppose that by peak bushfire time, February, there won't be anything left to burn.
So, while the NZ government is considering what to do with the Tokelauan and other Pacific refugees that will be turning up on the doorstep when their islands get flooded out, they might want to think about how many Aussies are going to think "bugger this" and go somewhere that it rains. As for support on the Kiwi side of the Tasman, while several groups of firefighters are over here helping out, big business is doing its bit too. Fonterra, the dairy export board, is "looking at markets Australian companies would not be able to supply". Well, how nice. Of course, I'm wondering why on earth Australia - given the unsustainability of large pasturelands here - is farming enough dairy to export bloody low-cost milk powder, but that attitude of Kiwi farmers saying "give us higher prices now" gives me the creeps. Of course, given the latest UN report saying that cows produce more greenhouse gases than cars, we'll see just how long that attitude lasts. I'd like to see that UN statistic verified, although I note they're counting all the ground clearance, fertiliser and feed costs into that output.
Finally, in the movie, Al Gore says that hope isn't lost, and points to the progress made with the ozone hole as evidence that people can smarten their ideas up. I think this particular problem is less tractable, although I suppose improvements made might work as precipately as the problems developed. But I can't help thinking a huge part of the problem is Malthusian, and what are we going to do about that? I'll qualify that slightly. I believe we might be able to adequately feed the existing population without overburdening our resources - if we start managing them properly now - but I don't think the Earth is capable of doing so for the projected population in the next century. And certainly not if we don't make any changes.
