Amazon rainforest is reaching a 'tipping point' where huge swathes will begin to transform into SAVANNAH
Resilience? Measuring that would seem to require some sort of varied pressure leading to responses that steadily change in an orderly way. Examples of such repeated changes seem unavailable in Amazon climate data as far as I can see.
Their "Methods" section is steeped in technicalities that only the most dedicated specialist could understand so I was able to gain no idea about how they measured their core construct. But it seems unlikely that they actually had data which would enable the measurement of such a construct.
But however it is measured, attributing the changes observed to global warming seems more heroic rather than reasonable. How come: "Resilience actually increased from 1991 to around 2000, but the consistent decrease since then has taken resilience well below 1991 levels".
In other words, resiliience actually INCREASED for roughly half the study period. How does that correlate with the suposedly negative effect of global warming? It does not. Whatever resilience is, it would not seem to correlate with a temperature increase over the period concerned. Their conclusions seem to reflect their prejudices rather than their actual findings -- as with so much Leftist academic writing
The Amazon rainforest is reaching a 'tipping point' where over half of it could be transformed into savannah in a matter of decades, a new study has warned.
Three-quarters of the world's largest rainforest is showing dwindling resilience against droughts and other adverse weather events, researchers say, meaning it is less able to recover.
The loss of the forest would mean billions of tonnes of CO2 would be released into the atmosphere.
It would also reduce the planet's ability to recycle the greenhouse gas and lead to an acceleration of global climate change, according to experts led by the University of Exeter.
While they admit it is 'highly uncertain' when the tipping point will be reached, once the process begins they predict it could be a matter of decades before a 'significant chunk' — possibly 'well over' 50 per cent — is transformed into savannah.
The data from the Prodes' system comes just months after a study revealed that the Amazon rainforest is now 'fuelling' global warming.
Huge areas are producing more carbon than they absorb due to deforestation, reported researchers from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.
A combination of fires and logging in has seen large regions switch from being an essential 'carbon sink' to being a carbon emitter, they said.
This shift is is further fuelling the global warming crisis, leading to more 'extreme weather events' and the team said that 'each year it's getting worse.'
Extensive observations revealed that south-eastern Amazonia — about a fifth of the whole area — has switched to being a substantial source of CO₂.
The researchers said around a fifth of the Amazon has already been lost compared with pre-industrial levels, blaming much of this on human activities such as logging and land use for crops.
Dr Chris Boulton, from the University of Exeter, said: 'We've found a pronounced loss of Amazon rainforest resilience over the last 20 years.
'What we do find over the Amazon is that, particularly since the early 2000s, 75 per cent coverage of the Amazon rainforest appears to show some sense of a loss of resilience.
'And what we also find is that areas which are closer to human land use, such as urban areas or crop lands, they tend to be losing resilience faster, as do areas which receive less rainfall.'
Resilience actually increased from 1991 to around 2000, but the consistent decrease since then has taken resilience well below 1991 levels.
'Deforestation and climate change are likely to be the main drivers of this decline,' said Professor Niklas Boers, of PIK and the Technical University of Munich.
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China to ramp up oil, gas, coal production as energy costs rise
China says it will ramp up domestic oil, gas and coal production and increase reserves of the commodities, warning that the war in Ukraine is driving up energy costs at a time when it is determined to stabilise commodity prices.
In comments that will have long-term ramifications for Australian commodity exports to China, officials from the country’s powerful state planner said on Monday said there were plans to add 200 million tonnes of coal stocks and more than 5 billion cubic metres of gas storage.
Officials acknowledged rising crude oil and gas prices due to the Ukraine war and Russian sanctions would affect China, but said the situation was manageable.
“The recent escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has had an impact on the global energy market, and international crude oil and natural gas prices have risen further,” National Development and Refom Commission vice-director Lian Weiliang told reporters.
“Due to the high proportion of China’s crude oil and natural gas which is outsourced, it will definitely be affected and import costs will rise. But overall the impact is manageable,” he said.
The comments came as the latest trade data showed a slowdown in China’s import and export growth in January and February. This included a 14 per cent drop in coal imports for the first two months of the year after Indonesia temporarily banned shipments of the commodity.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a major oil and natural gas producer, has driven up global commodity prices amid fears of an energy supply shortage. China, which says it opposes sanctions on Russia, also imports oil and gas from Moscow.
Continued reliance on coal
Rising energy costs and electricity shortages are a major concern for the Chinese government, which is seeking to grow the world’s second-largest economy by about 5.5 per cent this year. China imports more than 70 per cent of its oil and 40 per cent of gas from overseas. It banned imports of Australian coal 18 months ago due to political tensions.
While China has said its carbon emissions would peak in 2025, it is still heavily reliant on coal. The slowing economy has meant earlier plans to scale back the use of coal have been put on the backburner.
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Boris Johnson believes the West should be given a “climate change pass” to help wean the EU off Russian gas supplies as he faces mounting pressure over the government’s 2050 net-zero target
The Times has been told that Johnson wants the West, particularly the US and Canada, to ramp up its own production of gas to help remove the “massive leverage” Russia has over EU countries.
While retaining the government’s target, Johnson is understood to believe that western countries should be able to increase gas production during the transition to nuclear and renewables. It came as Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, announced that he is launching a political movement to campaign for a referendum on the net-zero policy.
A government source said: “The prime minister has been very clear that one of the massive problems is the leverage that Putin has over a number of European countries over gas and oil.
“We have to address this over the short term, mid term and long term. The prime minister is interested in giving the gas industry a climate pass in the transition to nuclear and renewables.” Johnson hinted at the approach during an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the German publication Die Welt last week.
“We need a collective European strategy and a western strategy to diversify away from this dependence,” he said. “There are other sources . . . in North America, in Canada, in the Gulf.”
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, suggested at the G7 meeting in Brussels on Friday that a ceiling be imposed on imports of Russian coal, oil and gas which comes down over time. She believes that the “long-term defence of freedom is worth short-term economic pain”.
Germany gets two thirds of its gas from Russia. It recently announced that it is shelving the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
In The Mail on Sunday, Farage announced a campaign group, Britain Means Business. He said: “Without any debate, our energy bills have been loaded with green subsidies. Our businesses have been disadvantaged, yet our leaders seem happy to outsource industrial production just as long as they can say it reduces CO2 emissions.
“We will campaign for the 5 per cent VAT on energy bills to be removed.
“Green subsidies are shovelled straight into the bank accounts of rich landowners, wealthy investors and foreign-owned conglomerates who own much of the renewable energy sector.” Many Tory MPs have significant concerns about the cost of net zero.
Thirty-four Tory MPs urged the prime minister to reverse plans to seal two shale gas wells, insisting that Britain must secure its energy independence. Cuadrilla is due to concrete over its wells in Lancashire on March 15.
In their letter to Johnson, the MPs state: “We urge you to pause and conduct a review. At a time of such geopolitical strife, we cannot refrain from actions that would improve the position of the UK and its allies. We have seen how a reliance on imported gas affects the responses of other countries during the initial stages of Russian aggression.” The intervention was organised by Craig Mackinlay and Steve Baker of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group.
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Dishonest climate propaganda from Australia's ABC
Another instance where Leftists deliberately lie to prop up their ideology
As residents of Northern New South Wales, a region known as the Northern Rivers, are still clinging to their rooftops awaiting rescue from emergency services and selfless fellow citizens in the wake of this week’s devastating floods, the ABC was playing politics with their lives.
While the façade of ABC news reporting sort to shine a light on the personal misfortune of thousands of affected residents and their local communities and businesses, the real underlying agenda was to weaponize this misfortune in its religious quest to proselytise Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) aka ‘climate change’.
Cue the NSW, Sydney-based edition of the 7PM nightly news bulletin on March 1. Those of us who are familiar with the ABC modus operandi of AGW propaganda know that slotting in the word ‘unprecedented’ at every available opportunity, whether factually correct or not, is foundational in spreading the word of their climate change overlords. And when ‘unprecedented’ doesn’t quite fit the historical facts, well why not alter the playing field so that an unsuspecting audience is none the wiser?
Approximately a third of the way through the bulletin, after fielding reports from reporters on the ground in northern NSW and beyond, the anchor brought the weather presenter into the frame to highlight rainfall totals for the town of Casino, located on the Richmond River, in a historical context. We were informed in a stern ‘you have been a bad boy’ kind of way utilising a bar graph visual prop, that the 2022 rainfall totals to date already represented over half the mean annual rainfall for Casino dating back to the seemingly arbitrarily chosen year of 1953. We were psychologically implored to be convinced that such a phenomenon was outside what could be attributed to a pre-AGW world. The implied pitch and tone were clearly aimed at convincing viewers that this was ‘unprecedented’. However, as is so often the case with the ABC, all is not what it seems or more specifically all is not what their ABC is seeking to have you believe.
Let’s start with rainfall data for the town of Casino itself. The nearest Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) weather station that is currently in service is the Automatic Weather Station (AWS -58208) at the nearby Casino airport which is located almost 4km from the town centre. Now that seems like a relatively central location to be representative of the greater Casino region. The February 2022 monthly total for rain at this station was a hefty 573mm adding to the January total of 155mm to register over 720mm for the year to date – well above average – but is that unprecedented when compared with historical data?
This is where we encounter our first significant issue with the ABC news report. The Casino AWS situated at Casino Airport has only been operational since 1995, hardly a comprehensive sweep of historical rainfall data for the region. The 2022 (January and February combined) totals above are certainly the most substantial in the period 1995 to 2022, with the next largest combined total for the first two months of a year being 574mm in 2008. Where did the arbitrary starting point of 1953 come from as referenced by the ABC news report broadcast to at least a quarter of a million viewers statewide at the time?
Well it seems data was merged for Casino from the old decommissioned BOM weather station (58063) that was located around 1km away at the Casino Airport from the current station and about 3km from the centre of town. This weather station has uninterrupted data commencing from 1858 through to 2011. What does this treasure trove of data reveal in regards to the ‘unprecedented’ nature of Casino’s 2022 rainfall to date? Those who retain the capacity for critical thinking may not be surprised to learn that the year to date 2022 rainfall totals for Casino have to take a back seat to 1893, which recorded a truly eye-watering 1005mm to the end of February exceeding the 2022 total by almost a third again. Other notable contenders were 1890 (644mm), 1959 (612mm), 1953 (597mm), 1947 (575mm), 1954 (563mm), and 2008(574mm). What of the highest daily totals for Casino across its 170 years of records? On February 28 the AWS station recorded 240mm, however on May 14, 1921, 279 mm was recorded in one 24 hour period and on February 22, 1954, 267mm was recorded. To be sure some weather stations recorded in northern NSW recorded over double these 24 hour totals in the last week, but again this is unlikely to be historically unprecedented in the wetter regions of Northern NSW of which Casino is not one of them.
So why did the ABC choose to cut off its historical lens on Casino’s rainfall in 1953 when the same data source extended back another 100 years from that point?
It would seem that the 1890s data represented a truth bomb to their ABC’s ‘unprecedented’ AGW rain bomb narrative. To add to their discomfort and difficulty the ABC has in addressing the real data in the face of cult-like adherence to AGW dogma, the wettest year on record for Casino was 1890 with 1955mm and the runner up was 1893 with 1844mm when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were thought to be between 280 – 300ppm. Go Figure!
All of this recent commentary around record rainfall in NSW and beyond has occurred in the aftermath of the ABC repeatedly reporting, especially since 2019, that Australia’s eastern seaboard was becoming hotter and drier and that this trend was ‘locked in’. Now, in the wake of two consecutive years of above-average rainfall across the eastern seaboard (indeed much of Australia), along with cooler than average temperatures, it’s as if that previous ‘settled climate science’ and associated prognostications never happened.
Ask yourself, how many of these same ABC journalists are willing to look the residents of northern NSW in the eye and guarantee them that if only, just only, we reach Net Zero CO2 emissions their towns will never flood again? Answer – net zero… So, the next time you hear an ABC presenter utter the words ‘Net Zero, it may well be a reference to the ABC’s credibility.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/03/the-abc-where-activism-beats-compassion/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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