There’s something in the warm water

What El Niño might bring. It might be abnormally cold on land in much of the northern hemisphere at the moment but it’s a warm old time in the world’s oceans. During the last four weeks, equatorial sea surface temperatures have been above-average across the Pacific and Indian Oceans and over large areas of the Northern Hemisphere subtropics including in the Atlantic.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides the picture.

The NOAA’s National Weather Service sees the above average Pacific water temperatures as consistent with El Niño which is expected to exert a significant influence on the global weather and climate in the coming months. For the contiguous United States, potential El Niño impacts include above-average precipitation for the southern tier of the country, with below-average precipitation in the Pacific Northwest and in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. Below-average snowfall and above-average temperatures are most likely across the northern tier of states (excluding New England), while below-average temperatures are favored for the south-central and southeastern states.

As for Australia the Bureau of Meteorology sees better than 50% chance that some relief from hot weather is on the way for south eastern Australia. The national outlook for the March quarter (January-March) mean maximum temperatures, shows moderate to strong shifts in the odds favouring above average values in the west of WA and in a broad region covering much of northern and northeast Australia. In contrast, cooler than average daytime temperatures are indicated in the southeast of the country.

The chance that the average January-March maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature, is between 60 and 65% in western WA and between 60 and 90% northeast of a line from Derby in northern WA to Sydney (see map).

This means that for every ten years with ocean patterns like the current, about six to nine March quarters would be expected to be warmer than average over these areas, while about one to four would be cooler. In contrast, there is a 60 to 70% chance of cooler than normal days averaged across the season over Tasmania, Victoria and southern SA.

A nonsensical war. There is one thing that seems clear to me about the war in Afghanistan. If the aim is to get rid of suicidal Muslim terrorists it has failed already. Supposedly the United States and its allies – including Australia – went to Afghanistan to stop Al Qaeda and capture or kill its leader Osama Bin Laden. Now we find Al Qaeda is ensconced in Yemen and that the horn of Africa has its own horde of fanatics, some of whom are migrating to join their brethren in Yemen every day. This outpost of militant Muslims was apparently involved in the planning of the latest attempt to blow up an aircraft over the United States which suggests that the presence of Bin Laden is not necessary for the war against the west to continue.

So what does the west do now? Do we keep fighting an irrelevant war in Afghanistan and invade Yemen as well? And when the provision and/or training of terrorists moves on to Sudan, or some other Muslim nation, what do we do then?

In Australia these questions are not even being asked, let alone answered, by the politicians in our major political parties. Labor and Liberal are both terrified of being labelled as “soft on terror” in the belief that such a label will cost them votes at the forthcoming federal election. Only the Greens have had the courage to condemn the futility of sending Australian troops to a war that has become irrelevant for such base political motives.

Every bit as appalling is the comparative silence of the country’s religious leaders. Their silence is in stark contrast to the head of Germany’s Protestant Church, Bishop Margot Kässmann, who told the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper before Christmas: “Even by the broadest standards of the Protestant Church in Germany, this war cannot be justified and that the armed conflict must be ended as soon as possible.” She also said that German troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible.

No Japanese silly season. There are no summer holidays to disrupt the normal news cycle in Japan so the newspapers up there generally have been more restrained than ours in covering the drama on the Antarctic high seas of their country’s whalers and the ships of the Sea Shepherd. The Mainichi Shimbun, however, has had a few wordsof warning that the issue could in the end affect Australia-Japanese relations.

“Anti-whaling sentiment is deeply rooted in the Australian public, however, and with a general election coming up in the fall, the Australian Labor Party administration of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s response has been lukewarm.

The thing is, whether we are for or against whaling has absolutely nothing to do with whether we condone the violence perpetrated by Sea Shepherd. Prime Minister Rudd should be able to provide a sober explanation of this fact, and take a resolute stand against the organization’s disregard for law and order.

If the purpose is to stop Japanese whaling, the matter should be taken up with the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and obtain the support of its member nations. Quietly condoning the actions of Sea Shepherd, which has ignored the democratic processes in the IWC, is tantamount to an announcement that any means — both fair and foul — are acceptable in striving towards a goal. This reasoning is no different to that of a terrorist.”

A tasteless headline. Debate about global warming certainly brings out the worst in people. Hence this headline in the well-read sceptics blog Watts Up With That:

It’s about as tasteless as you can get. So tasteless that it has now been changed:

How Watts Up handles the news that the political blackmailer Peter Spencer is coming down from his perch on a wind tower on his property near Cooma after 52 days I do not know.  What I do know is that this particular hunger strike attracted the minuscule public sympathy that it deserved.