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Heatwaves and the Winter Solstice

heatwaves-increasing-australia- — Graph by The Conversation/BOM refers to the situation in Australia)

As the Winter Solstice came and went and our wood heater consumed the last of 2020’s firewood, the US mid-west was sweltering through an early summer heatwave.

Australia is, hopefully, at least five months away from its first hot spell. But in the US mid-west states, which have been in the grip of the worst drought in 20 years, the mercury is rising. Cue Martha and the Vandellas..

Canadian relatives had already been posting photos on social media implying a very early summer, but across the border, things are grim.

The New York Times took the opportunity to conjure up an appropriate headline “Climate change batters the west before summer even begins”.

In Arizona and Nevada, temperatures soared to 115F (46 Celcius), which would raise eyebrows even in Birdsville. Four writers contributed to a New York Times special report last weekend as Lake Mead, which supplies water to three south-western states and Mexico, fell to its lowest level since 1930. Early wildfires are burning in Utah, Montana and Arizona, while in California communities are debating water rationing.

In Texas, power utilities are pleading with customers to go easy on air conditioning in case excess demand causes blackouts.

Moreover, the June trend appears to have surfaced in some European countries, notably France. After a freak late-winter heatwave, above-average temperatures are assailing Europe.

Those with relatives living in the Northern Hemisphere will be hoping this does not signal a return to the disastrous heatwave conditions that killed 72,000 Europeans in 2003.

Not that we are immune in Australia, where it could be easy to argue that many of us live in heatwave-like conditions for at least three months of the year. At which point I should mention it seems to matter not if it is heat wave or heatwave.

It is difficult in winter to recall how it is to live through consecutive days with temperatures in the 40s. We should take our cue from the dog, who slinks off to the bathroom and splays himself on the cool tile floor.

Scientists agree (apart from those who don’t), that climate change is accelerating the severity and duration of heatwaves. Certainly in this country extreme hot spells increased markedly between 2000 and 2020.

Australia’s weather authorities have decreed a heatwave to exist when temperatures are seven degrees higher than average in any 30-day period. A report in November last year by Ralph Trancoso and others in Science Direct summarises highlights for Australia:

Future heatwaves could last up to a month should global temperatures increase by 1.5% to 3% in coming years.
There has been major increases in the 2000’s in comparison to previous decades;.
heatwaves have intensified in the recent past and are projected to increase faster in future;
heatwaves may be 85% more frequent if global warming increases from 1.5 to 2.0 °C.

In hindsight, perhaps we should have paid more attention during Australia’s ‘angry summer’ (December 2012-January 2013). The severity of the heatwave conditions then prompted a flurry of research reports on climate change.

Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie chose the ABC’s Q&A forum in 2017 to claim that Australia’s heatwaves were worsening, with hot days doubling over the last 50 years.

The Conversation put this assertion to the test, asking the Climate Council, which had recently commissioned a report, for more detail.

“Climate change is making hot days and heat waves more frequent and more severe,” a spokesperson said. “Since 1950 the annual number of record hot days across Australia has more than doubled and the mean temperature has increased by about 1°C from 1910.

“”On average, that there are almost 12 more days per year over 35°C.”

Andrew King, Climate Extremes Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, said there was not a large body of research against which to test these claims.

“But the research we do have suggests there has been an observable increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves in Australia. A review paper published in 2016 assessed evidence from multiple studies and found that heatwaves are becoming more intense and more frequent for the majority of Australia.”

In Australia, the general population is well versed in the art of remaining hydrated in hot weather. Regardless, heat-related deaths happen here, even though it is not often stated as such on death certificates.

UK academic Professor William Keatinge says few deaths are directly caused by heat-stress, although extreme heat exacerbates medical conditions including diabetes, kidney and heart disease. Heat stress causes loss of salt and water in sweat, causing haemoconcentration, which in turn causes increases in coronary and cerebral thrombosis.

“Other deaths in heatwaves are probably due to overload of already failing hearts, unable to meet the need for increased cutaneous blood flow in the heat.”

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Prof Keatinge said people at risk in heatwave conditions include those unable to sweat (because of diabetic peripheral neuropathy), or those taking anticholinergic drugs, barbiturates or phenothiazines, which depress reflex regulation of body temperature. Alcohol can also be dangerous in the heat, he added.

Meanwhile back in the relatively chilly southern hemisphere, Macca is due to deliver a load of ironbark firewood on Saturday morning. Even though nights have been cold here, apart from a few bleak days, it warms up to 19 or so by midday. Perfect weather to strip down to a t-shirt and jeans and shift the firewood to the shed around the back. The truth about cold snaps is you can always add another layer, crank up the wood fire or turn on electric heaters. The only real damage is to the power bill.

We do not have the same choices when weather phenomena like a heat dome pushes ‘normal’ summer temperatures to the levels usually experienced in arid places like Marble Bar or Coober Pedy (for America, read Death Valley).

The reappearance of heatwaves this summer will see a renewed focus by climate change activists on the Australian government’s inaction on climate policy.

And it’s official: Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been formally rebuffed by the UK government, which is hosting a climate summit in Glasgow. Britain’s foreign secretary said Australia’s PM did not meet the required terms for attendance in November. The UK urged Australia to do more to reduce its carbon emissions.

It is illuminating, then, to revisit January 2020, when we were in the midst of catastrophic bushfires and a heatwave.

Mr Morrison told the media his policies on reducing emissions would ensure a “vibrant and viable economy, as well as a vibrant and sustainable environment”.

At the time, the United Nations had rebuked Australia, saying there had been no change in its climate policy since 2017. Emission levels for 2030, it said, were projected to be well above the target. The Climate Change Performance Index ranked Australia last out of 57 countries responsible for more than 90% of greenhouse gas emissions on climate policy.

Complicating matters now is the re-emergence of controversial politician Barnaby Joyce as Deputy Prime Minister. The conservative politician can fairly be described as a climate change denier. In 2012 he opposed the Labor government’s attempts to bring in a carbon pricing regime. Joyce was quoted in the SMH as claiming it would push the cost of a Sunday roast to $100. Infamously responding to public criticism of the Coalition’s environmental policies, he accepted the climate was changing, but insisted the solution was to respect God.

Heatwave? What heatwave?

FOMM back pages

A collection of must-reads for 2020

must-read-2020 — Image: Forest fires in the Amazon: www.pixabay.com https://www.facebook.com/pages/PixFertig/550895548346133 Bushfires in Australia ripped through 1.6 million hectares between August and December, 60% more than the Amazon forest fires which burned out 900,000ha earlier this year.

In seeing out 2019, I thought it might be useful to direct you to some insightful essays and analysis on the burning issues of the year.

Make no mistake, when the clock counts down the seconds to midnight on December 31, the honeymoon will be short. Australia is entering 2020 with a serious list of challenges. Not necessarily in order of importance, they include drought, fire, water security, the climate crisis, a stagnant domestic economy, the spiralling cost of housing and a widening gulf between the seriously wealthy and the working poor. Welfare recipients, the mentally ill and homeless people need taxpayer-funded help more than anyone.

To date, our peerless leaders of both State and Federal governments appear to have few answers to these questions. In their stead, we rely on informed and educated commentators.

An incisive piece by Everald Compton, an 89-year-old essayist posed the question ‘Will a candidate from the left ever win an election again?”

A fair question, given the pasting politicians of the Left have received at the ballot box in Australia, the UK, America, South America and key European countries.

In reviewing the global swing to the right and why so-called social justice parties have fallen so far out of favour, Compton concludes the Left had blurred complex messages. Politicians of the Right, meanwhile, worked hard to become popular with voters.

For example, in the most recent UK election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigned on a manifesto of radical policies, such as buying back the British Rail System and freeing up traffic congestion by allowing free rail travel.

His opponent Boris Johnson simply said (over and over): “Let’s get Brexit done; let’s get rid of the pain of recent years.”

As Everald wrote, that is what most people had on their minds when they filled out their ballot papers.

Likewise with Labor’s crushing electoral defeat in May 2019, Labor Leader Bill Shorten came up with 145 policies, none of which he managed to sell to voters. His opponent Scott Morrison had one mantra: “Don’t trust Shorten, he will take all your money in high taxes.” It worked!

In the US election campaign of 2016, Donald Trump had one speech only: “I am going to drain the swamp in Washington.”

Hilary Clinton, according to Compton, directed all her speeches “to please the great and the mighty”.

“In the end, most voters did not trust her. They believed that she was not one of them.

“Voters respond to ideas and visions, not policies. They vote for Leaders not Parties.

“It is a lesson that those on the Left have not learned. They simply don’t talk the language of the average voter.”

In an article about Europe’s cult of personality, Politico’s Matthew Karnitschnig wrote that the UK election demonstrated how ‘personality rules’. Polls consistently showed Johnson to be better liked than Jeremy Corbyn. (Polls showed much the same trend in Australia, with Morrison edging out Shorten as preferred leader for months on end).

“In today’s political landscape, where ideology and principle have been supplanted by pragmatism and raw opportunism, parties often serve as little more than wrapping for the larger-than-life personalities who lead them,” Karnitschnig wrote.

The list of cheeky mavericks includes “BoJo” (Johnson), “Basti” (Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz) and “Manu” (French president Emmanuel Macron).

The big question is where Europe’s personality-driven politics will lead.

“They may be like fireworks that burn very bright and then burn out,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the London-based think tank.

Politics aside (for now), the news story of the year was Westpac’s egregious mishandling of some 23 million transactions that breached money laundering rules. So far, the scandal has claimed the scalps of the chief executive and chairman and no doubt internal reviews will result in staff being sacked or demoted. Westpac’s share price has slumped from just under $30 at the end of September to a pre-Christmas low of $24.21 That’s a 20% loss in share value, which cynics might suggest investors will find more alarming than yet another scandal for a bank which, like its three rivals, has seen more than a few over the decades.

The Australian Financial Review had the bright idea of contacting former Westpac boss Bob Joss (now dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business) for comment.

Joss appeared disappointed that the strong risk management culture he injected into the Sydney-based bank had failed.

“What is needed right now is a thorough investigation and analysis of the facts so the breakdown in risk management can be understood and fixed, and accountability for failure can be assigned.”

Analysis of Australia’s waning economy (like a fully laden iron ore train going uphill), is best left to experts. Here, the AFR looks at Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s determination to hold on to the first Budget surplus in more than a decade. In so doing, he is ignoring the call from the Reserve Bank to open the coffers and stimulate the economy. The Christmas shopping figures will come out soon and then we will know if the much-discussed retail recession will spread to other sectors of the economy.

Direct action by farmers who organised a rally to Canberra to protest water security and drought management is one example that PM Morrison’s constituents may be having second thoughts. The same applies to veteran firefighters who sent a delegation to the nation’s capital seeking a meeting with the PM. He didn’t want to face them either.

The government’s main response to rising public angst about bushfires, drought, water management and the climate crisis is to champion tougher penalties against those who choose the right to protest. This mean-spirited, ‘blame the victim’ response is, alas, typical of Right-wing governments the world over.

The Guardian let writer Richard Flanagan loose in an opinion piece titled “Scott Morrison and the climate change lie – does he think we are that stupid?”

Flanagan railed against the view of some commentators that Morrison is a political genius – the winner of the unwinnable election.

“But history may judge him differently: a Brezhnevian figure; the last of the dinosaurs, presiding over an era of stagnation at the head of a dying political class imprisoned within and believing its own vast raft of lies as the world lived a fundamentally different reality of economic decay, environmental pillage and social breakdown.”

Flanagan ended his well-argued tirade with an observation that Morrison is held in thrall and thus influenced by his Pentecostal religion.

When the Rapture comes, Flanagan wrote, the Chosen are saved and the unbelievers left to “a world of fires, famine and floods in which we all are to suffer and the majority of us to die wretchedly”.

“Could it be that the Prime Minister in his heart is – unlike the overwhelming majority of Australians – not concerned with the prospect of a coming catastrophe when his own salvation is assured?”

Yep, someone had to say it.

I will leave you with scientific insights (as suggested by Mr Shiraz), into what happens to native forests, particularly wet sclerophyll forests, once they have ‘recovered’ from the ‘unprecedented’ bush fires that burned across Australia between August and December 2019.

If that is all too depressing, here is a fluffy piece of nostalgia about a man and his typewriter (recommended by Franky’s Dad).

The team here at FOMM (two people and a dog) wish you all a safe, healthy and smoke-free 2020. We will need more than thoughts and prayers.

Climate extremes – from bushfires to a polar vortex

snow-polar-vortex — February snow at White Rock, BC, image by George Davidge

February is the one month of the year when the climate extremes of the northern and southern hemisphere starkly remind us of the threat to civilisation posed by climate change.

In the northern hemisphere, a polar vortex in January and February brought record low sub-zero temperatures to the UK, Europe, USA and Canada. Cars disappeared beneath mounds of snow; Chicago’s river froze as temperatures dropped to a rare -46 degrees Celcius (wind chill temperature). The regular temperature at -30 degrees was just 2 degrees warmer than a 34-year-old record low.

I’m reliably informed that if you go outside in this kind of extreme weather, don’t blink – your eyelids will freeze shut. Mind you, there are enough selfies and images on social media to suggest that some happy snappers took the risk.

The image above was taken this week at White Rock, a coastal town in southern British Columbia, where the average winter high and low temperatures are Celsius 8 degrees and 2 degrees. It is rare to have extreme weather there (snow storms, ice pellets and freezing rain).

Even though I live Down Under, I’m attached to songs which evoke the wintry romance of the frozen north. They include Joni Mitchell, wishing she had a river to skate away on, Dar Williams, throwing her lover’s car keys into the water (where they froze, halfway down), and Dave Goulder’s song about northern hemisphere seasons, the January Man. “The January man he goes around in woollen coat and boots of leather The February man still shakes the snow from off his clothes and blows his hands…”

Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, Australians have just survived the hottest January since 1910 to suffer more of the same in February. On January 19, Melbourne residents endured 44° Celsius (it got to 47 in some outer suburbs).

In terms of climate extremes, most of Australia received less than 20% of normal rainfall in January. Canberra, the nation’s capital, normally known for bitter cold, had a record run of four days above 40C. A Bureau of Meteorology report also highlighted record long runs of consecutive hot days.

They included:

Birdsville (Qld) 10 consecutive days over 45C
Alice Springs (NT) 16 days in a row above 42C
Cloncurry (Qld) 43 consecutive days over 40C*
Camooweal (Qld) 40 consecutive days over 40C
Walungurru (NT) 27 consecutive days above 40C
Bourke (NSW) 21 consecutive days above 40C*

*broke State records

Australians also suffered through the highest overnight minimums on record, peaking at 36.6 degrees at Wanaaring in NSW.

February-bushfires-climate-change — Bushfire burning at Girraween National Park, image by Penny Davies

Searing hot temperatures sustained over many weeks turns native forest and grasslands into tinder-dry fuel. A stray cigarette butt, a lightning strike or a spark from a tractor-slasher is all it takes. Stanthorpe, normally the coldest place in Queensland, recorded a maximum temperature of 36.9°C on January 19. This was one of the few places in the country to offer some overnight respite (10°C ). A lack of rain and sustained high temperatures contributed to a massive bushfire which started at Wallangarra on the Qld/NSW border and quickly spread to Girraween National Park.

The fire started on February 12 on the outskirts of Wallangarra, cutting a swathe through 43,000ha of bush and pasture. As of yesterday, the fire was still smouldering, although the threat to people and property around Wyberba, Ballendean and Eukey has abated. However, there’s a windy weekend ahead, so bush fire brigade volunteers will be on high alert until it rains.

Last Saturday, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services warned Granite Belt residents that a large, unpredictable fire was heading in a north-westerly direction through Girraween National Park with the potential to cross Pyramids Road. Residents of Eukey and surrounds were put on notice to be ready to evacuate.

Climate change skeptics will tell you Australia has always had climate extremes; bushfires, floods and droughts (as they drive their diesel 4WDs to a ridge for a better view – they can get 2GB reception up there too).

In the interests of balanced journalism, it seems only fair to provide a link to their view of the world):

But as we never tire of repeating here at FOMM HQ, 97% of the world’s climate scientists think climates extremes are happening and they are aggravated by human behaviour

We Aussies, sweltering through weeks of temperatures above 30°C in many locations where humidity is 70% or more, yearn for the hopefully cooler days of March. In the northern hemisphere, those enduring the extreme winter can but hope for an early thaw.

The climate change deniers and those who just don’t want to think about it need to be reminded in ways that have become obvious to a generation of bright young things who skipped school to make the point.

As you’d know, there are climate change skeptics in Australia, as there are in other industrial nations. They may be in the minority, but some of them are in government, which makes their opinions matter.

A Lowy Institute Poll of 1,200 Australians quizzed about climate change and energy found that 59% agreed with the statement: “climate change is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs.”

Furthermore, 84% agreed that “the government should focus on renewables, even if this means we may need to invest more in infrastructure to make the system more reliable”.

It is now five months since a United Nations climate panel warned that the world has about 12 years left to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius. Australia and the rest of the world must virtually eliminate the use of coal for electricity within 22 years if there is to be a chance to save even some of the Great Barrier Reef. At 1.5°C, coral reefs are expected to decline by a further 70% to 90%, the report said.

More than 90 scientists drew together thousands of pieces of climate research for the report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The conclusion was that global emissions of greenhouse gas pollution must reach zero by about 2050 in order to stop global warming at 1.5° Celsius. At current rates, 1.5C would be breached as early as 2040 (just in time for those born today to celebrate their 21st birthdays – Ed).

Ah me, there’s more to come on this story, with the Kids vs Climate Change movement started by then 15-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg gathering pace. Following Greta’s lone, 20-day strike in August, Australia was one of the first countries to respond. Despite scornful rhetoric and table-thumping from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 15,000 students went on strike in November. Contrary to claims that the protests were partisan (and organised by hardcore greenies), this week students protested outside the electorate office of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan branded the ongoing protests as “appalling political manipulation”.

On March 15, teens around the world will absent themselves from school to demand action from adults in power about climate extremes. As people with teenagers know full well, they are the cohort least likely to be manipulated, politically or otherwise.

Footnote: I almost forgot to leave you with this link to Dar Williams’ beautiful song February, which has been interpreted by some as being about a couple with Alzheimer’s, using winter as a metaphor. My friend Rebecca Wright, who like me sees it as more of an ending and a new beginning song, does a fine version.