Equivocal Evelyn - Village Magazine

5 8

July-August 2018

HOUGH HARDLY a household name

today, English engineer and inven-

tor, Guy Callendar, is famous for

developing the theory linking rising

atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels

to global temperature. The so-called Callen-

dar effect is at the bedrock of modern

climatology. Ironically, Callendar, who died in

1964, thought this CO2-fuelled warming effect

would be broadly beneﬁcial to humanity, as

it would postpone “a return of the deadly

glaciers”.

Callendar’s meticulous compilation of nine-

teenth-century temperature records and

cross-checking of them with old measure-

ments of atmospheric CO2 led him to the

novel conclusion that temperature increases

appeared to be driven by increases in CO2

levels. Not ever yone was convinced. The Brit-

ish Meteorological Society at the time

dismissed his results as mere coincidence.

In a letter to a colleague in 1956, Callendar

wrote: “ﬁnally, a word of warning, based on

long experience, against the pronouncements

of meteorologists on climate change. The

latter are usually obsessed with regional ﬂuc-

tuations of air circulation which mainly

inﬂuence local short-term trends, and do not

readily comprehend the controlling impor-

tance of atmospheric radiation for world

climate trend. The ﬂuctuations of local ten-

year averages make a poor indicator of the

latter!”.

In 2015, ahead of the Paris climate summit,

the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)

invited national met services to prepare a

“weather report from the year 2050” as a

hypothetical exercise. Ireland was repre-

sente d by Evelyn Cu sac k . Her shor t two-minute

bulletin is revealing.

“Will there be any change in our weather

patterns (by 2050)? Well, there are many spec-

ulations. Some think it’s going to turn more

stormy, that we’re going to get more rainfall,

more ﬂooding events, perhaps more droughts.

Perhaps it’ll turn warmer, perhaps even

colder, as the Gulf Stream gets turned off”.

Casting her mind forward to 2050, Cusack

added: “it really is impossible to estimate.

Climate models really are in their infancy”.

Predicting the exact weather on, say, Septem-

ber 23, 2050 is, as Cusack says, impossible.

However, the underlying climate signal is

absolutely unequivocal.

The WMO, of which Met Eireann is a

member, have no compunction whatever in

attributing current severe weather events to

climate change. “Scientiﬁc assessments have

found that many extreme events in the 2011-

15 period, especially those relating to extreme

high temperatures, have had their probabili-

ties over a particular time period substantially

increased as a result of human-induced cli-

mate change – by a factor of 10 or more in

some cases”.

The WMO report added that, of 79 studies

between 2011 and 2014, “more than half

found that anthropogenic climate change con-

tributed to extreme events. The most

consistent inﬂuence has been on extreme

heat”.

Cusack did allude in passing to one poten-

tial climatic game-changer in the decades

ahead, which is the possibility of the Gulf

Stream switching off. This, in the words of

former chief Nasa climatologist, Dr James

Hansen, would mean that “all hell would

break loose in the north Atlantic”, with the

sharply increased temperature gradient

between the tropics and the northern hemi-

sphere fuelling savage super-storms.

A study published earlier this year in

‘Nature Climate Change’ projected that more

than a quarter of the Earth’s surface will be

in the grip of permanent drought and deser-

tiﬁcation by 2050, with global average

temperatures likely to rise by a catastrophic

2ºC within the next 32 years.

Yet, when pressed on RTÉ radio as to

whether there was anything in any way unu-

sual about this summer’s record drought, the

best Cusack could do was to repeat: “it’s just

variability” – twice. I challenged this state-

ment on social media, and my comments were

picked up by the

Sunday Times

, which ran a

story headed: ‘Met Eireann’s “climate denial”’.

Rather than addressing the issue, Cusack

instead rejected my critique as “ridiculous”,

adding: “John Gibbons is not an exper t on cli

mate”. This is of course true. I have never

pretended to be a ‘climate expert’ but have

interviewed many of the world’s leading cli-

matologists, from Michael Mann and the late

Steve Schneider to Kevin Anderson and our

own John Sweeney, Conor Murphy and Kieran

Hickey.

There are many ﬁne scientists and forecast-

ers working in Met Eireann, but I would

contend that they are grievously mistaken in

downplaying climate change or claiming that

climate modelling is so novel or tentative that

it can’t possibly give us a clear picture of what

is coming fast down the tracks. This is dan-

gerously close to the kinds of narratives being

deployed by do-nothing advocates lobbying

for business as usual special interest groups.

We can and must expect more from our inde-

pendent meteorological service.

by John Gibbons

Equivocal Evelyn

ENVIRONMENT

Evelyn Cusack. Pic: Rollingnews.ie

'It's just variability'

Met Eireann’s Evelyn Cusack has been slower

than the World Meteorological Organisation

to attribute current severe weather to climate

change

July 2018

5 9

2008 – 2018

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