At www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120201181220.htm we learn that global jelly fish populations might not be exploding after all – another doom saying proved to be a shallow piece of environmentalist hype. It's getting to be too much of an occurrence – green doom sayings that go awry when some serious investigation is applied to the message (but meanwhile a false concept is out there floating around the media and being recycled by the unwary). It's getting a bit like all those medical scare stories – this is good for you (according to one line of research) but bad for you (according to others).
Over at www.physorg.com/print247325494.html we find that environmentalists are thinking about introducing wild elephants to Australia so that they can chomp an invasive African grass that burns freely during wildfires, adding to the combustion.l The African grass is unsuitable for kangaroos, or for cattle and buffalo, but apparently elephants and rhinoceros enjoy munching the tall gamba grass. Looking behind the goal posts, being a bit sceptical as introductions have not gone down too well in Australia in the past, why start another one as after all wild camels are proving to be a problem – and there are more of them in central Australia than in their homeland. Is that a clue? Do environmentalists think they can preserve the elephant as a wild species in Australia as its existence in Africa and Asia is threatened by ivory poachers – and the same goes for the rhinoceros. Rhino horn is placing a big price on wild animals and it is thought they too might become extinct (except in zoos).
At www.physorg.com/print247480947.html .. another sign of the 'end-times' has taken a bashing. This time, coral reefs in western Australia – they are thriving in spite of supposedly warmer ocean water that was said to be a death knell. The meme is that as co2 from human emissions increases in the atmosphere it also leads to warmer sea surface temperatures and altered ocean chemistry. Studies by environmentalists in recent years, have documented alarming declines in the health of tropical coral eco-systems – and a series on BBC TV is currently pushing the tragedy that has apparently struck the Great Barrier Reef. In contrast, this latest to be published study, based on actual field observations in the Indian Ocean, and covering the 20th century as a whole (replete with constantly rising co2 levels) has discovered there is no widespread pattern of consistent decline. In other words, the 'end-times' have been postponed for a while and the doomsaying is nonsense – subsidised nonsence.
Over at www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/338160/title/Little_Ice_Age_begins_w… we learn that the Little Ice Age started suddenly and gave rise to several hundred years of cold summers – yet according to the Hockey Stick icon of CAGW, there was no Little Ice Age – it was airbrushed away by a certain climate scientist who has huffed and puffed about the authenticity of his magic wand with an uptick on the end, in spite of repeated put downs. Expect more of the same as in this study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 31st, it is said a string of volcanic eruptions may have set a change in climate in motion – by belching particles into the upper atmosphere that reflected sun light. The paleaoclimatologist and geologist, in this instance, are convinced the cooling was abrupt – which is a new angle. Various people in the past have blamed increased volcanic activity for some of the low points during the Little Ice Age but Clube and Napier famously blamed it on the orbit of the Earth encountering a region of space thick with material spewed out from the passage of a comet. In this scenario, the Taurid Complex, a widely dispersed body of material that may have had an origin in a comet's passage, was so wide that it took a couple of hundred years for the Earth to pass through it (the cold weather being attributed to an opaque sky, rather like the volcano hypothesis, but longer lasting). The volcano connection was given a pasting at http://wattsupwiththat.com a couple of days ago – and had little sympathy among commenters. Indded, most climate sceptics appear to be fixed to the idea is is sun spot activity generating recent weather patterns and the phrase, 'It's the Sun, stupid' has a certain ring about it when applied to CAGW alarmism. The Clube and Napier hypothesis has the ability to combine a number of features – and not just a few cool summers and very cold winters. It does not invalidate Chinese and Korean astronomical observations that were recorded in meticulous daily record keeping, for example. It embraces the idea of strange goings on in the sky, religious outbursts and oddities such as witch burnings and superstitions with an origin in the pagan past- when fear of the Gods (rather than just the Almighty) were in vogue. Some people are now expecting a steep fall in global temperatures – especially if the next Sun cycle is even more devoid of sun spots than the present one. Is this another display of doom saying – by people on the sceptic side of things? It is just as likely the next Sun cycle will be more active than the present one – but until it arrives we won't know. This kind of thing pops up in a guest post by an Australian, David Archibald – see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02.03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/ where the solar cycle is said to influence sea levels – and even lake levels. The commenters are not so sure of the pudding mix.