Indian Indian Environment Minister Warns of Green Protectionism

Courtesy: Asian Age

In the run-up to the Rio+20 summit, minister of environment Jayanthi Natarjan cautioned against the use of green economy to promote “green protectionism”.

“Access to energy, food security and poverty eradication” were the key pillars to ensure global partnership the minister emphasised while welcoming minister to the Delhi Ministerial Dialogue on “Green economy and Inclusive Growth.”

“The entire issue of commitment made by parties to the Green Climate Fund would have to be honoured,” she emphasised, pointing out that “the bottom line is that poverty eradication is our primary goal for a green economy — it is the pillar.”

While appreciating India’s role in taking a lead in formulating responses in the areas of food and energy security, Sha Zukang, under secretary-general of the United Nations emphasised the key objective of the Rio meet was to arrive at a “focused political outcome.”

Access to energy services was a prerequisite for social and economic development especially.

 

After Discovery Channel, TIME Magazine warns of Little Ice Age

There is a spate of articles and videos on the Little Ice Age.  The surprise is that one by one leading global warmist media are doing a turnaround. We had Discovery Channel's docu-drama, "Little Ice Age, Big Chill." recently. The most recent is TIME magazine. Enjoy

Climate Change Caused Crises Half A Millennium Ago, Too

 Courtesy: TIME 

A team led by David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong collected as much data as they could find about climate, demography, agro-ecology, and the economy from the years 1500 to 1800 in Europe and found that these variables yo-yoed up and down along with the weather. The investigators used a number of criteria to confirm that the relationship was causative and not merely associative:  there had to be a strong and, importantly, consistent relationship between variable and effect; the cause had to precede the outcome; and the researchers had to be able to  predict the effect based on the cause. To make all these connections, Zhang's team used robust correlation and regression models as well as simulations of alternating periods of harmony and crisis in the areas for the earlier periods in which data wasn't as easily available.

While  numerous civilizations did experience the same ups and downs as  global temperature over the centuries, the immediacy of the cause and effect varied. Sometimes the response to temperature change was almost instantaneous, while others time it took five to 30 years before the impact was fully felt. And as is the case with everything in the environment, a change in one area often triggered  a cascade of changes in others. Take for example the cooling that occurred from 1560 to 1660—a century within the 300-year era known as the Little Ice Age: plants couldn't grow as much or for as long, so grain prices soared, famine broke out, and nutrition sank. 

Poor diet means poor growth even for survivors, and the late 16^th century  saw a decline in average human body height by 0.8 inches. As temperatures rose again after 1650, human height crawled back up too. Before it did, however, sky-high grain prices and  accompanying real wage declines brought social problems more pressing than height.

“Peaks of social disturbance such as rebellions, revolutions, and political reforms followed every decline of temperature, with a one- to 15-year time lag,” the scientists wrote, adding that many such disturbances escalated into armed conflicts. “The number of wars increased by 41% in the Cold Phase.”

There were more peaceable responses too. Poorly fed or otherwise deprived people tend to decamp from where they're living and move somewhere else, and migration rates increased in this era along with social disturbance. The problem was, in these cases the relocation wasn't the hearty westward-ho kind of 19th century America, when well-fed settlers could live off the land (and the buffalo) while they sought new homesteads on the frontiers. Rather, migration among the hungry or unwell often leads to epidemics. It may be too much to lay the great European plagues of 1550 to 1670 entirely at the door of global cooling, but  dramatic climate shift and resultant poor health surely played a role. It was around 1650 as well that European population  collapsed, bottoming out at just 105 million people across the entire continent. Wetter countries with more fertile land or those with stable trading economies tended to do better in this eras of hardship, but no one was spared.

"Catastrophic" Winter maybe on the Cards

For the last 3 months, the global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly was hovering around the +0.30 deg C range. For September, 2011 it retreated a little again, to +0.29 deg. C (click on the image for the full-size version). The monthly statistics suggests the Tropics are where the positive anomaly is found the least.

Global sea surface temperature AMSR-E data for October 3 suggests it’s on its lowest from which satellite measurement commenced in 2003. Meanwhile all atmospheric indicators are touching on La Niña thresholds, with NINO3.4 at -7 and the 30-day Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) at +11.4.

Cloudiness near the Date Line remains suppressed since April 2010 when the La Niña first appeared indicating that there is no respite indicating that the drought in Texas and East Africa shows no hope of receding. 

[Cloudiness along the equator, near the Date Line, is an important indicator of ENSO conditions, as it typically increases (negative OLR anomalies) near and to the east of the Date Line during an El Niño event and decreases (positive OLR anomalies) during a La Niña event.]

Historically, global temperature lag the La Niñas/El Niños by 3 to 6 months and accordingly it is likely that we see a more dramatic drop this month (October) as the effects of the La Niña start kicking in.

There are indications that the winter jet pattern too may settle in early. Switzerland for example has already received snow early last month. Winter may prove "catastrophic" (apologies for borrowing the favourite term of climate alarmists) in a number of geographies.

But the caveat is that NOAA’s Space weather prediction center released their solar cycle progression updates, and it shows one of the largest jumps for all common solar metrics since cycle 24 began. The sunspot number jumped significantly due to the recent large sunspot group that released X-class flares.

Whether the sunspot number will decline or increases in the months ahead can depend how cold or warm winter will be.

India's climate treaty bid faces resistance at UN

 Courtesy: Hindustan Times

After failing to save Kyoto Protocol, India is fighting to include protection differentiated responsibility enshrined in the protocol in the proposed climate treaty to defeat the call of the rich countries of having mandatory emission reduction target for all nations.

Australia and Norway have proposed a new agreement seeking emission reduction targets for all countries on basis of their global warming causing carbon dioxide emissions.

They have set a target of 2015 to make the agreement operational. The proposal calls on major economies to quickly strengthen steps to curb emissions, agree on a way to standardise actions and a system to compare and verify what everyone else is doing.

The proposal was opposed by India this week at the United Nations climate talks in Panama City on the ground that the bid of the historical polluters, the rich nations, to have one emission reduction regime for all was not acceptable.

"They (rich nations) cannot ask the recent emitters like India and China to take on the responsibility of cutting emissions," said an Indian negotiator, while outlining country's position on the issue.

Instead, India had urged the UN body of 195 nations to adopt a new climate agreement which have basic tenements of the Kyoto Protocol --- mandatory emission reduction target for the rich nations and voluntary emission control measures for the developing world.

There will be a lot of difficulty in getting the Indian proposal through at the conference of 195 nations with other many developing countries are not willing to support India fully.

There is a division in G-77 plus China, the most powerful group in UN climate talks, with several African countries seeking some emission reduction target for the emerging economies. Even South Africa, which is part of the Basic group of India, China and Brazil, is not openly supporting India as it wants to be seen as a country leading the cause of Africa in climate talks.

Unlike the divided developed world, the rich nations are united in seeking a uniform climate treaty. The European Union had again changed its goalpost and is towing the line of United States and Australia, the two nations which did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

The Reason for IMD Forecast going awry: Failure to factor La Nina

The Indian Met office is going the way of their UK counterpart being a butt of jokes. They failed to forecast the monsoon this time round too. This year, they predicted deficient rainfall and the country ended up having copious rains, well distributed too. The hard data is all in and from this it is evident that once the effects of La Nina's second phase started kicking in from July, it was too late for the IMD to damage control - the variations from their forecast was too big to fix.

Depending on IPCC statistical models is too costly for a monsoon dependent economy like India. It is time the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) dump it once for all and switch to dynamic models that factor in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). India faces droughts during an El Nino and floods during La Nina.  We are likely to have an El Nino  during 2012-2013, as it repeats itself in 3-5 year cycles. And let us hope that they IMD will improve their performance by then.

MET for 7 wrong out of 10 forecasts

Courtesy: DNA

With the southwest monsoon 2011 season behind us, one thing emerges beyond doubt — the pessimistic forecasts of this important weather phenomenon by the (IMD) have been belied by empirical evidence.

The department had indicated that rainfall for the country as a whole for the four months ended September would be below normal at 95% of the long period average, with a margin of error of 4%. This was in June and constituted an update of the one issued in April.

But, it turned out the showers were copious and overshot the normal by 1%.

Clearly, the June forecast represented a refinement over the one issued two months earlier. But, the first stage forecast proved to be correct.

This raises a fundamental question: can any model, based on past data or real time developments that are known to have a bearing on the monsoon, predict the course of this important annual event, one that even now makes or mars the fortunes of Indian agriculture.

This time, the IMD was wrong in many of its forecasts. Rainfall in three out of the four homogeneous regions during the season did not conform to what it had envisaged.

This, despite the high error margin implicit in these forecasts. Similarly, rains in August, September turned out to be different from what was projected.

Thus, to say that the agency was widely off the mark would be an understatement. Out of the 10 forecasts issued by the IMD — the first-stage forecast for all-India in April, the second-stage forecast in June for all India, the four homogeneous regions and for the months of July and August, the forecast on August 1 covering the two months of August and September and finally the forecast on September 1 on the quantum of rainfall during the final month of the monsoon season — only three were in line with the actual.

Even as late as September 1, the IMD clung to the view that its forecast for all India, issued in June, remained valid, though "it is likely to be on the positive side of the model error."

In the same breath, it averred that even for the four geographical regions the season's rainfall might be within the limits of the forecasts issued in June.

This assertion is not borne out by the rainfall data for the season as a whole.

Even in regard to September rains, the IMD's forecast, issued as late as 1st of that month, proved to be inaccurate, even with a high error margin of +/-15%. It also added a caveat that, should monsoon-friendly La Nina conditions re-emerge during the month, rains could be more than expected.

It is not entirely IMD's fault. Unraveling the monsoon is a complex undertaking and despite the increased sophistication of the models designed to predict its course, only baby steps appear to have been made in this direction. The first attempt to forecast this phenomenon was made in 1988 and improvements were further effected in 2003, as a sequel to the failure of the forecast in 2002.

Now, it appears, history is repeating itself. The present model did not foresee the drought of 2009 — the worst in nearly four decades — and this year, while its forecasts were somewhat gloomier, there was much to cheer about the performance of the monsoon.