By Bob Williamson – Chair & Founder of the Greenhouse Neutral Foundation

Lately I have been asked what my take is on the extreme storms in the northern hemisphere and what my OPINION is, on the claims that the world is now entering a period of global cooling. Well everyone who knows me knows I am not a climate scientist and not called upon for a learned opinion by the IPCC or others.

However I owe those who have asked my opinion an answer.

I believe that over the coming months, just like the leaked e-mails from East Anglia University in the lead up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December, that these latest weather anomalies will be reported as broadly by those wishing to cast doubt on the established science of an overall upward trend in global average temperatures as they can, to facilitate several outcomes that I will talk about shortly.

First though let’s get one thing out early. Weather on any given day, week, or month, or even year, does not for those who understand overall long term warming, mean any more than what should be referred to, as ‘weather variability’ or in terms of the general vernacular ‘climate change’. Weather has, and always will be, wildly erratic. As the world experiences shifts in the circulation of air currents due to areas of extreme change such as those occurring in the rapidly heating Arctic and Antarctic, weather anomalies both extreme and or just unusual, will be experienced. Some areas may experience increased drought, some increased heavy rainfall causing floods, and some, as presently being encountered in the northern hemisphere, extreme cold snaps.

Let’s think of it like that of a deepfreeze refrigerator door being left open. The air outside the deepfreeze is warm and rises; the air inside the freezer is cold, and unlike hot air rising, it drops. As the ice thaws, more cold air becomes available and if you could see it, you would see the cold air as it drops pushing more hot air upwards – Circulation! As I said I am no climate scientist or meteorologist, however we do know the Arctic and Antarctic freezer doors have been left open.

In Australia where I live, in the spring and summer months in years gone by, it was almost monotonous to watch the evening weather forecast and see a High Pressure Zone sitting squarely in the Great Australian Bight off the shore of South Australia. It sat there for days, even weeks on end. This high pressure trough meant that each morning during those weeks and months in the early part of the day, an easterly wind bringing hot air from the Great Sandy Desert would blow through the eastern facing windows of our home. In the mid to late afternoon there would be what locally is called, the Fremantle Doctor, a sea breeze from the West bringing much welcomed relief on the hot summer days. The high in the Bight no longer remains stationary; in fact this year I have rarely seen it except as it moves quickly eastwards bringing ‘extreme weather’ anomalies to the Eastern States. Yesterday for example January 11^th 2010 saw Adelaide in South Australia experience 40 degrees C – Melbourne today January 12^th will have these temperatures to endure, while Adelaide will drop dramatically to 26 degrees C. – 14 degrees in one day. Here in Western Australia we have seen similar dramatic shifts from one day to the next, where in past years, in the 35 years I have lived here, you could expect as reliably as a Swiss watch, that spring would come on time and gradually warm up to summer when days on end you could expect similar temperatures. The Weather Man was always spot on with the forecast and now he hasn’t a hope in hell of getting the 7 day forecast right!

So what we have is ‘weather variability’ what, in my opinion, is causing it? We, the global population have left the freezer door open.

So what will be the debate, and why will it happen over the next few months?

Like many things in life, we are much happier to walk along with what we have been doing and feeling comfortable with. Most prefer the status quo to that of change. We will more happily accept everything is OK and we can go on as we always have, because that makes us feel we are doing alright. So the vast majority will be far happier to go along with those who will tell us over the coming months that ‘Global Warming’ —- long term referenced over many years – ‘not regionalised weather variability’ isn’t happening. Which we know is! The long term trend in all models is upward to now being + 0.8 degrees above the ‘long term’ average global temperature of + 13.5. Now where the freezer door has been opened, lets not forget that there is a + 3 to + 5 degrees C in upwards warming. Is carbon dioxide (CO2) the reason for the long term shift in overall average global temperatures?

Let me ask the question in another way. If you pour contaminants that shouldn’t be there, into the local river, will it have an effect? Should it be there? Have we created a problem that needs to be fixed? What will happen to the river if we allow people to keep pouring their pollution into the river? What is the level when the river system is beyond repair and is dead, so that no river inhabitants can survive there as they always have before?

Frankly, who cares who is right or wrong about whether or not this or that level of atmospheric pollution of CO2 will be lethal to us and other species on the planet! Every day we pump out 45 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmospheric river. Every week 315 million tonnes, every month 1,365 million tonnes are pumped into the sky river. Every year 16,425 million tonnes and growing rapidly with more emissions from industrial expansion in the developing world. Even more when we take into account the thawing permafrost methane that is being released because we left the freezer door open.

So my ultimate answer to the original question – Get used to ‘weather variability’ because you’ll have weather, whether you like it or not.

What’s my suggestion as to what to do about the atmospheric river?

Stop chucking more pollution into it, because we fish have nowhere else to live.