Hot weather disproves climate change… Wait, what?

Happy 2012 to all you Lost in Scientists!

Here in Melbourne it’s been a sweltering start to the new year, hitting 40 degrees on 2 January. Of course, you can’t blame isolated spells of hot weather on climate change alone, as temperatures will always fluctuate around long-term changes in the mean (although extremes, particularly on the hot end, are expected to become more frequent).

But still, even though we’re all familiar with the tabloid notion that winter disproves global warming, the readers of the Herald Sun seem convinced that summer makes a good counter-argument too:

At last, summer. It used to go for months, now we get weeks. “Climategate” sure exposed the frauds.
(Note: it’s January)

It’s summer, not climate change. We’ve had 40 degree days every year for years.

One day of 40 degrees … it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Deal with it like people have for years.

The most at-risk are the pensioners who can’t afford their electricity bills. The carbon tax will only make things worse. Global warming is a scam … 40 degrees is not unusual.

And my favourite:

We’re told this is the hottest start to summer in over 100 years. Does that mean it has been hotter in the past – before airconditioning and maybe even before global warming?

Yes, I know I should find something better to read – but give me a break, I’m on holiday!

Regular coverage will resume shortly…

Recently on the radio

We’ve been a bit quiet recently on the Lost in Science blog. But that doesn’t mean the team hasn’t been busy, oh no!

Here are some links to go with our recent radio broadcasts. Or, you can download the podcasts, for our shows from 3 November 2011 (25:54 min / 12 MB) and 10 November 2011 (28:09 min / 26 MB).

• Analysis of corporate ownership networks shows that out of 43,060 transnational companies, only 147 of them – mostly banks – control 40% of the wealth. Read more in New Scientist, or see the entire paper in the arXiv database.
• Protesting about this risks exposure to pepper spray, or Oleoresin Capsicum, which uses the chemical capsaicin ((CH₃)₂CHCH=CH(CH₂)₄CONHCH₂C₆H₃-4-(OH)-3-(OCH₃)), extracted from chilli peppers, to cause eye and skin irritation. Read about its health effects in Investigative Opthalmology and Visual Science and the North Carolina Medical Journal, or see treatment recommendations from Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.
• The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study, partly composed of and funded by climate change sceptics, has performed a massive re-analysis of global land temperature records and verified that yes, the world really is warming.
• Aside from being real, climate change seems to have caused Australian seaweed species to move between 50 and 200 km south, risking the habitat of many other species that depend on them. Read more at ABC Science, or see the paper in Current Biology.
• In more extinction news, Tasmanian devils are currently threatened by a contagious cancer, which seems to spread due to their genetic similarity. Hope is held for a small, genetically different and mostly disease-free population in the northwest of the state, research into which has won a team of scientists the 2011 Eureka Prize for Environmental Research (also see their paper in Conservation Biology). Although the recent discovery of devils with facial tumour disease in even that remote area has increased concern for this unique species.
• (A good friend of ours, John Cook of Skeptical Science, was also awarded the 2011 Eureka Prize for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge. Congratulations John!)
• Speaking of genetic diversity, research on the Sandy Island mouse has shown that polygamous females produce more viable embryos. See the paper in Ecology Letters, or read more at the University of Western Australia.
• Finally, to space. Three recent discoveries have shed new light on how solar systems like ours form: there’s a planet called LkCa 15b, 473 light years away, which has been discovered in the process of forming; water seen in the planet-forming disk around the young star TW Hydrae (175 light years away) supports the theory that it collects around grains of dust to make comets, which then deposit the water on planets like Earth; and photos of the asteroid Lutetia, taken by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe, suggest that, at around 3.6 billion years old it’s a relic of the early Solar System, and have given clues to its formation.

Have you missed any other shows? Catch up on our old episodes!

When purity doesn’t run deep

Tasmania is a great place, with vast areas of beautiful, unspoilt wilderness. And, just as some television commercials would have you believe, you’d expect the water there to be pure and unspoilt too.

Unfortunately, appearances can be deceiving. A microscopic parasite, Giardia duodenalis, is very common in Tasmanian waters. And it’s a major cause of diarrhea, or specifically, giardiasis.

Giardia is a genus of protozoa, single-celled organisms that live in animal digestive systems. Their life cycle goes through a couple of phases: the form that moves into and reproduces aexually in the small intestine is called the trophozoite. They’re also the ones that cause diarrhea, which moves the trophozoites into the large intestine where they form cysts, which are then excreted in faeces. These cysts make their way into the waterways, are again ingested by animals and, once they reach the stomach, release the trophozoites and start all over again.

The cysts are quite hardy, able to survive in the acidic environment of the stomach. They can also live for several months outside the body, performing better in colder water. Which is why they do so well in Tasmania, where they’re endemic in the animal population. A study published in 1998 found Giardia infection in 20% of dogs and cats, and up to 62% in native bandicoots.

Digitally-colourised, scanning electron micrograph of a Giardia protozoan from a rat’s intestine, showing the thread-like flagella that it uses to move (Image by Dr Stan Erlandsen and Dr Dennis Feely, Center for Disease Control, via Wikimedia Commons)

Fortunately, the fact that they prefer cold water means it’s fairly easy to avoid infection. Simply boiling the water kills the cysts, and any remaining trophozoites, making the water safe to drink.

Just don’t sip directly from a mountain stream, no matter how pure it appears.

Kettlewell JS, Bettiol SS, Davies N, Milstein T & Goldsmid JM 1998, “Epidemiology of giardiasis in Tasmania: a potential risk to residents and visitors”, Journal of Travel Medicine, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 127-30 (PDF, 390 KB)

Geoengineering as climate change plan B

Clearly, the best way to address climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is to stop emitting greenhouse gases. Which is great, except we don’t seem to be very good at that – particularly in terms of getting international cooperation.

So what do we do if it turns out we can’t cut emissions quickly enough to avoid catastrophe? Or to put it another way, science and technology kind of got us into this mess, so can it get us out of it?

Satellite image of fires and deforestation on the Amazon frontier, Rondonia, Brazil, on 12 August 2007. Intact forest is deep green, while cleared areas are tan or light green. Clearing forest like this releases a great amount of carbon dioxide and removes a valuable carbon sink, so why not try and reverse the process? (By Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon of NASA Earth Observatory, via Wikimedia Commons)

What we’re talking about is geoengineering. It may sound far-fetched, or perhaps like a super villain plot, but it’s being given considerable thought by seriously serious bodies like Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Expert Meetings and, more locally, a Pilot Workshop on Asian perspectives.

But what exactly is geoengineering? Well, the options analysed in an influential 2009 paper by the UK Royal Society can be split into two categories: carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management.

In the list below, we rate these options by their predicted effectiveness and craziness – the inverse of the Royal Society’s assessment of affordability, timeliness and safety.