Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry Maurie Trewhella, of Victoria University (Australia), has just made a stunning claim about global warming, in a letter to the editor.
According to Trewhella;
Ian Dunlop’s warning (Comment, 7/4) is especially sobering. The slowing of atmospheric temperature rise over the past 15 years or so, used by climate change sceptics to debunk the work of the IPCC, is, on the contrary, evidence that the solar energy delivered to the Earth is being absorbed by the oceans. The Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are acting as giant dampers to contain temperature rise in the oceans. When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, the rise in both ocean and atmospheric temperatures will accelerate rapidly and demonstrate that the passing of the tipping points that Dunlop expresses concern about has, indeed, occurred. …
I’m not certain which article by Ian Dunlop Professor Trewhella was responding to, but this article, full of alarmist claims about tipping points and the “dangers” of economic growth, seems fairly typical of Dunlop’s writing.
Professor Trewhella is a person of substance within Australian academia. The press release Ephedrine’s green dream details advanced work being performed by Associate Professor Trewhella and colleagues on yeast, to economically produce important medicines (interestingly their innovation, in this case, involved large quantities of CO2).
To obtain a Chemistry qualification in Australia, you have to study Thermodynamics at an advanced level. Part of being a qualified Chemist in Australia, is knowing how much heat it takes to melt a block of ice.
Does Professor Trewhella really believe that the Antarctic and Arctic ice sheets will “melt away in the next decade”? I hope not. But whatever led to this letter being published, it seems careless to say the least, for the reputation of a man of science, to be associated with such a ridiculous claim.
Let’s see. Rodham is probably already trying to decide on her cabinet and high level positions such as ostp head to replace Holdren. No need to be a US citizen, so maybe Trewhella is just throwing the hat in the ring.
Need to read this CLOSELY:
“evidence that the solar energy delivered to the Earth is being absorbed by the oceans. The Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are acting as giant dampers to contain temperature rise in the oceans. When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so,”
Get it. All that heat being hidden by the oceans is going to melt both the Antarctic and Arctic ice sheets FROM BENEATH (I guess the stuff on the rock at the South Pole is exempted until the air temps go up), then there will be no more ice sheet temperature DAMPING of the ocean temps and temperatures will soar because well, without the damping the oceans will have to boil from the hidden heat and it’s going to get mighty hot and humid (a combination I hate).
The Melbourne Age (the newspaper in which this letter was published) only publishes pro climate change articles. Many of them verge on hysterical. Articles that depart from the ‘concensus’ will not get mentioned (let alone published) for the simple reason that the people at the Age apparently believe readers need to be ‘educated’ to think correctly (rather than be informed). A quick read of the paper will reveal the same policy applies to many of the other pet progressive causes upheld by the paper.
Given where it’s been published this is a meaningless letter.
Yes Andrew but as we know those in the inner city of Melbourne that read that rag tend to vote ‘Green’ as a consequence.
Many of them verge on hysterical …
===================
Hysterical in both senses of the word.
“When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, the rise in both ocean and atmospheric temperatures will accelerate rapidly and demonstrate that the passing of the tipping points that Dunlop expresses concern about has, indeed, occurred.”
Hilarious comment, where do these people get their common sense?
accelerate rapidly. (future prediction)
demonstrate (future prediction)
passing of the tipping points (future prediction)
….has indeed occurred (past tense).
Kindergarten kids know not to mix future tense with past tense.
His idiosyncratic claim makes me wonder why Professor Trewhella has bothered to patent an “environmentally-friendly” drug treatment for colds and flu.
Stratospheric observations during the IPY The first part of winter 2008-2009 has been characterized
by a stable and cold polar vortex which allowed the persistent formation of PSC particles. In
mid-January of 2009, however, the most intense sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) ever observed occurred [Manney et al. 2009, Di Biagio et al. 2010]. SSWs strongly affect the dynamics and thermal structure of the Arctic stratosphere causing the breakdown of the eastward winter circulation, the build up of a westward circulation, and the reversal of the latitudinal temperature gradient. As the 2009 SSW developed, the stratopause lowered, the mean zonal circulation reversed, and ultimately
the polar vortex in the lower stratosphere split in two (see Figure 12).
http://www.annalsofgeophysics.eu/index.php/annals/article/view/6382/6368
Extremely high level of GCR from the beginning of January 2009.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=03&startmonth=01&startyear=2009&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=01&endyear=2010&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Pressure spikes above the polar circle north and south in the winter, 2009.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_HGT_ANOM_ALL_NH_2009.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_HGT_ANOM_ALL_SH_2009.gif
For comparison, the pressure in winter 2015 in the Northern Hemisphere (February strong solar wind, a decrease GCR).
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=01&startmonth=10&startyear=2014&starttime=00%3A00&endday=01&endmonth=04&endyear=2015&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
It can be seen that the effect of solar activity on the polar vortex is extremely complex. If solar activity will fall scientists finally wake up.
It can be seen as weakening the polar vortex (velocity is highest in winter) allows the flow of ozone over the Arctic Circle. In the south of the vortex is gathering speed.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp50anim.gif
the polar vortex in the lower stratosphere split in two
==============
demonstrating the influence of the earth’s magnetic field on climate, as the magnetic field influences the distribution of paramagnetic oxygen.
the north magnetic pole is on the move, as the magnetic field splits between canada and siberia, the polar vortex is split in two. the cold that used to be isolate to the arctic ocean is now split over north america and siberia. will the ice follow?
Fred/ren,
“demonstrating the influence of the earth’s magnetic field on climate”
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rm8_geu4VNo/VCXWUP1UA1I/AAAAAAAAAJw/bCAYU-dVcyQ/s1600/HadC_Tim.png
The correlation is very good. IMHO part of the picture is
a) Auroral oval changes,
b) GCRs enter changing clouds & snow/ice,
c) PDO and AMO heat (as in rens’ image) can i) melt ice from below and ii) when melted the arctic can radiate 14 billion sq metres x tens of W/m^2 energy to space
That’s a lot of energy.
The arctic ice is the Earth’s thermostat.
David Blake April 12, 2015 at 11:37 am says;
The arctic ice is the Earth’s thermostat.
There are two hemispheres.
@David Ball,
“There are two hemispheres.”
The things I learn at WUWT!
1) It’s the Northern hemisphere temperature signal, like the AMO and PDO, that correlates best with *global* (NH&SH) sea and atmospheric temperatures. e.g.
2) Antarctica is a continent. The arctic isn’t. Sea ice insulates the warmer ocean from the colder atmosphere, when the arctic melts more warm sea is exposed to cold air (increasing albedo, but also allowing the sea surface to radiate and evaporate)
3) Ocean currents draw warm waters to the arctic. The ice cap is the thermostat that traps or releases that heat.
Don’t worry everybody, because…
“Australian scientists are developing wind turbines that are one-third the price and 1,000 times more efficient than anything currently on the market to install along the country’s windy and abundant coast.”
According to an earlier Wollongong Uni. notice. Now removed.
So, it seems that almost everything in the future will defy the laws of thermodynamics.
Even the wind turbines. (which are currently up to 50% efficient at optimal performance.)
Time to “dream the impossible”, and build a turbine that extracts 500 times more energy from the wind, than is in the wind in the first place.
Australians scientists are now just making up any old shit, to grab attention.
And it’s working.
http://www.sciencealert.com/new-superconductor-powered-wind-turbines-could-hit-australian-shores-in-five-years
‘When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, ‘
The trick hear is he did not claim to would ‘disappear’ merely they would ‘melt’ which can made a wide range of things .
But at least he has given a realistic time line so he can be reminding of his claims of ‘climate doom’ while he is still around , clearly he did not get the note to tell me that ‘predicts’ should be made a ‘safe time line ‘ of say 100 years .
Well, yes. Here is global vertical mean temperature anomaly of the upper 2000 m of oceans for the last 60 years as calculated by the United States Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Oceanographic Data Center, Ocean Climate Laboratory.
From this it can clearly be seen that long term rate of warming is 0.0135 K/decade. Now, if an additional 14 mK would be enough to melt away polar ice sheets completely or even partially, is doubtful.
Associate Professor Maurie Trewhella could have saved himself from abject embarrassment, should he had remained silent on a topic apparently way beyond his field of expertise, but well within the capabilities of any BSC student passing an exam on an introductory thermodynamics course.
Hahaha!
I do hope that someone from Victoria University takes the trouble to alert Professor Trewhella to the existence of WUWT. I’m sure he would find the site, this post and its comment thread most enlightening.
Haven’t they been saying this about every year now? And they’ve also said this decades prior.
Still have yet to become true..
Nothing had worsened for quite a while. That is the unchallengeable proof that things are worsening. Gravy train, here I come…
That man does not seem to be a professor but a brain contortionist. Or a professor of brain contortionism.
It’s a bit sad that a professor of chemistry is prepared to put his name to this crap, but it is, after all, only what we’ve come to expect from a certain quarter of society – those with a Green tinge. Treading lightly upon the earth is a decent-enough principle, but when someone trained in the hard sciences is prepared to discard their numeracy and reason for the sake of making an activist’s point, we can only despair at their willingness to disgrace the good name of authentic science in the process.
True, he’s an organic chemist rather than a physical chemist, but I’m pretty certain that Ass Prof Trewhella knows the freezing point of water, and that the Antarctic is ‘king cold, and even knows that the land ice is several km thick. If he was smart enough to get a doctorate, he probably wouldn’t even need a beer mat to do the quick calculations of scale that would confirm that his mention of ‘decades’ was wrong by several orders of magnitude, even if the most dire predictions of global temperature rise were to come to pass.
But no, for the purpose of saving the earth, he is willing to parrot the untruths of other lesser minds like any witless drongo, while parading his qualifications for the sake of authority and credibility.
This is the crying shame of the ongoing saga. Many real scientists – that is, the ones with curious minds who are always asking the question “Is that really so?” about almost any subject – have been far too ready to accept the outgushings of the catastrophist branch of climate science and their sh*tty models, believing that they are doing real science like themselves and giving them the benefit of the doubt without further enquiry.
For the AGW meme to proceed, things have to keep getting worse.
They are not getting worse in reality. But that’s not important. Because so long as they keep getting worse IN YOUR MIND, then the money will keep rolling in….
The good professor just contributed to that…..
‘When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, ‘ ~ Professor Trewhella
Over 150 comments have been made so far concerning the stupidity of the good professor’s alarmist claptrap that was published in The Age. Paraphrasing what I have read: some have said he was outside of his field of competency and just plain wrong, others have said that he knows better but just plain lied, while others have said his words were poorly written and he did not mean what he plainly wrote.
I think the good professor meant what he wrote. He thinks all the ice is going to melt and it is going to melt very soon. How could an informed, reasonable man think something that stupid? Religious or cult belief can be very irrational. Some people believe in a Santa Claus god who loves everyone with infinite love but will torture people for all of eternity if they don’t believe in him — never seeing any contradiction there. The “Devil CO2 Cult” is powerful these days and true believers can not be swayed with mere facts and observations.
Science is about making our theories compatible with our observations of reality. The CO2 cult is not about observations and reality. This is the reason the fool from Australia believes that temperatures that have been flat for 20 years will somehow manage to melt the ice at the poles in 10 years or so.
Here is my alarmism. I think that modern science is dying from the avalanche of government funding. Real science does not start at the conclusion you want and then work backwards. How hard is that to see?
It’s a TRUE HELL out there that Australian academia is infested with types like Trewhella!
I’ve dealt with Victoria University at a senior corporate level. They are an amalgam of two higher education vehicles in Victoria. A university a TAFE college (technical school in the old days). TAFE has had funding slashed at a significant scale here over the past few years. The institution is administratively and financially disfunctional in the extreme, separately to those conditions. It has little prestige in the field of this topic. I smell a rat.
Such claims run counter to the real world evidence that shows global sea ice to have the same extent as it did in the early 80’s. After a period of slight decline from about 2005 -2012 , over ghe last 2-3 years it is pretty much back to where it was when satellite measurements started. Bizarre claim.
How does he expect Arctic sea ice to have any effect on sea level?
The level of higher education in Australia is a real worry. I would never send my children to study there
I suspect that may be true not just in Australia
Remember that guy who said he was going to live on an iceberg for a year? Shouldn’t Trewhella get in contact with him and warn him? Perhaps Trewhella could talk some sense into him.
Eugene WR Gallun
“Perhaps Trewhella could talk some sense into him.”
The idea of Trewhella talking sense into anyone brought a very big grin to my face. Thanks. 🙂
It was a misprint.
“Decade” should be “Millennia” and the whole shooting match was intended to be prefixed with >maybe”.
Anything short of the sun turning into a red giant overnight, a Millennia is not enough.
If Antarctica was suddenly moved to the equator it might melt in a million years. And temperatures elsewhere around the world would plummet as the ice melted.
It is strange (or perhaps it isn’t) that well regarded academics seem to get carried away with their own self importance and make predictions which are, to put it mildly, flawed. Politicians and the media are in awe of these people and rather than put their own brains in gear, follow/report their pronouncements as though they are from infallible Gods.
It is saddening that when Peter Wadham said that Arctic summer sea ice would be gone by about now, Bernard Lovell said ten years befor the first moon landing that travel to the moon is a fantasy, and others like this chap make stupid pronouncements, their careers, rather than being destroyed, continue to flourish!
We cannot know Trewhella’s motives since we cant’t read each others mind (or people that can are not telling us they can) but for a skilled scientist to make such a ridiculous, ignorant and dire warning indicates:
a.) Confirmation bias has infected the scientific community,
b.) AGW is a religion and claims supporting AGW are faith based claims, and do not require the rigors of science.
c.) AGW is a political position and claims supporting AGW are ideological, and do not require the rigors of science.
d.) All of the above
Note I did not include honest mistake as a possibility since the letter was too charged and certain. Also I did not include stupid mistake since that is implied in all of the options above.
You left out ‘barking mad’ aka, ‘insane’.
Yes, they are all going insane as reality bites. The last bastion of their faith lies in the oceans. The oceans cool slower than air so some parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are still sort of warm but not for long.
The idea that the sun is heating up ONLY the oceans is crazy. And anyone looking at the Antarctic oceans can see this is pretty cold water just like the land is very cold. There is no way the Antarctic is going to melt any time soon.