Nuclear Power Related Media Thread, page-3065

A piece from Dr Peter Ridd

Education[edit]

Ridd received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from James Cook University in 1978, and later a PhD in Physics from that same institution in 1980.^[2] At this time, he also joined the Australian Institute of Marine Science. He started studying the Great Barrier Reef in 1984, mainly focusing on ocean currents and the movement of sediment.^{[3][better source needed]}
Career[edit]

While teaching at JCU, Ridd was the head of the Physics department from 2009 to 2016, and head of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at that institution for 15 years.^[2][4]




I wrote an article for The Weekend Australian about the latest “State of the Climate Report” which, as usual, seems to forget that the Reef has record high coral cover. It is a classic example of how the institutions refuse to acknowledge any evidence that contradicts the “story” they want to tell and proves they are no longer acting like scientists.
See below, or link at bottom. Also, Jennifer Marohasy has made an excellent post on her blog about this report.
Climate Report: Too bad to be true?
The BOM and CSIRO delivered their biennial dose of depression about the climate in their latest State of the Climate report. The climate has warmed by 1.5 degrees and there is barely a single benefit - it is all disaster.
It is often said, “if it is too good to be true, it probably is” and you are being conned. What about too bad to be true? Can a gently warming climate have no significant benefits at all?
The only marginally encouraging part of the report is about northern Australia. There might have been a slight reduction in cyclone numbers, and there has been a bit more rain in the last decades. Apart from that, the report reads like the Book of Exodus – one disaster after another. Only the frogs and boils are missing.
But it is significant that the period when Egyptians were building pyramids, which was hotter than today’s climate, is often called the Holocene Climatic Optimum. The word “optimum” was an indication that scientists working in the era before climate alarmism could see some advantage of a warmer climate.
A sure sign that the report tries too hard to find disaster, is when it discusses coral bleaching and the Great Barrier Reef. It stresses that there have been four bleaching events in the last six years, which it implies were devastating. But for some reason the report fails to mention that this year the reef recorded its highest amount of coral since records began in 1985. This proves that all the hype about the coral loss from bleaching was greatly exaggerated. But the report writers were obviously untroubled by the contradictory evidence. They ignored it.
And they also ignore the fact that corals grow about 15% faster for every degree temperature rise, and that almost all the corals on the reef also live in much warmer water near the equator. We should expect better coral, and it should extend further south. That is not too bad, is it?
Why doesn’t the report mention that the extra CO2 in the atmosphere improves the water utilisation efficiency of dryland plants, which occupy most of Australia, and that this has caused plants to thrive. According to NASA satellites there is a “greening” of Australia of at least 10%. Overall, the world has seen the area of green leaves expand by the equivalent of twice the area of the USA in just 35 years.
In a changing climate, there will be winners and losers, and it might be that the net effect is a major problem. But if the report writers will not even mention the good bits, how can we have any confidence in its findings. The latest report should ring alarm bells – but not just about climate. Is this an excellent tool of propaganda, or is it a scientific statement?
We should all worry about whether groupthink has taken hold of the BOM and CSIRO.
We should worry when the BOM say they have recently adjusted all the temperature records reducing the temperatures a century ago by up to a degree. Can we have any confidence they did this with a good scientific reason?
And we should worry about the BOM’s claims that the fire seasons are now much worse than in 1950. Why is all the information on huge bushfires before 1950 ignored – like the devastating 1851 Victorian bushfire and the 1939 fires. It is not like there is no data before 1950. Did they ignore that data for a good reason? Is this similar to the United Stated fire statistics which are often reported by authorities as having a major increase in fire acreage burnt since the early 60s, but fail to mention that there was almost ten times more acreage burnt in the “dust-Bowl” period in the 1930s.
In the next decades, Australian governments plan to spend hundreds of billions attempting to prevent climate change. Before we do that, maybe we could spend a few million doing an audit of BOM and CSIRO reports. Maybe we would find that adapting to a changing climate is by far the best way to proceed. We might even find that some of what we have been told is wrong.
Why will the conservative parties not commit to an audit. The fabulous data on the Great Barrier Reef is evidence enough that the science institutions have misled us, either deliberately or by incompetence. Who would argue against a bit of checking of the science, when the reef statistics prove scientists got something badly wrong. And the latest report is a sure sign that the BOM and CSIRO are drifting into political advocacy rather than science, observation, and objective prediction.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/.../5f61090be61904294fac...
https://www.nasa.gov/.../carbon-dioxide-fertilization.../
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/.../81c6a98a6fb1dc4229ea...
https://www.epa.gov/.../climate-change-indicators-wildfires
See fig 16.1 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/.../81c6a98a6fb1dc4229ea...
Or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb7RqXHnGLk